i 







^1 












EUROPEAN AGRICULTUEE 



AND 



RURAL ECONOMY 



FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATION. 



HENRY COLMAN, 



HONOKARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, OF THE 

NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE, AND OF THE NATIONAL 

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



" For, in all things whatever, the mind is the most valuable and the most important; 
and in this scale the whole of agriculture is in a natural and just order ; the beast is an 
informing principle to the plough and cart, the laborer is as reason to the beast, and the 
farmer is as a thinking and presiding principle to the laborer."' — Burke. 




YOL. I. X 



FOURTH EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. 



BOSTON: 



PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY. 

NEW YORK : CHARLES M. SAXTON. rillLADELPHIA : THOMAS, COWrERTinVAIT 
& CO. BALTIMORE: GUSHING U BROTHER. CHARLESTON, S. C: 
m'cARTEK & ALLEN. CINCINNATI : H. W. DERBY 
t CO. BUFFALO : G. H. DERBY k. CO. 

1851. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by 

HENRY COLMAN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPEB AT THE 
BOSTON TYPE AND STI<'rEOTYPE FOUNDRY. 



WKIGHT AND HASTy S STEAM PllESS. 






/ 3^6 



INDEX, 

OR 

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
VOL. I. 



FAOB. 

Names of Subscribers ix 

Preface to First Edition xxi 

Preface to Second Edition xxv 



FIRST REPORT. 

I. General Facts and Considerations 1 

II. Particular Objects of Inquiry 4 

III. Science and Agriculture 6 

IV. English Agriculture 10 

V. English Capital 13 

VI. General Appearance of the Countr}' 16 

VII. Hedges and Enclosures 18 

VIII. Iron and Sunken Fences 20 

IX. The English Parks 21 

X. Ornamental Shrubs and Flowers 29 

XI. Climate of England 31 

XII. Agricultural Population 34 

1. The Landlords ; Rents ; and Taxes 34 

2. The Farmers 38 

3. The Agricultural Laborers 39 

Xin. Allotment System 73 



SECOND REPORT. 

XIII. Allotment System, (continued.) 81 

XIV. Quantity of Seed 109 

XV. Steeping Seeds 114 

XVI. Spade Husbandry 122 

VOL. I. a 



^d' 



IV INDEX. 

TAGE 

X Vll. Condition of the Laborers 133 

XVIII. Progress of Agriculture, compared witli other Pursuits 144 

XIX. Actual Improvements in English Agriculture 148 

1. Draining, Irrigation, and Warping 148 

2. Live Stock and Vegetables 150 

3. Agricultural Implements 150 

4. Application of Steam to Agriculture 151 

5. Increased Production 159 

6. Royal Agricultural Society 160 

7. Agricultural Society of Scotland 16G 

XX. Relation of Landlord and Tenant 167 

XXI. Game and the Game Laws 173 

XXII. The Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland 175 

XXIII. Model Farm, and Agricultural School 179 

XXIV. Dublin Botanical Garden 18(5 



THIRD REPORT. 



XXV. Agricultural Education 189 

1. Glasnevin Agricultural School 19G 

2. Templemoyle Agricultural School 203 

3. Brookfield Agricultural School 210 

4. Lame School 216 

5. School at Ealing oig 

6. Agricultural College at Cirencester 219 

XXVI. General Views of Agricultural Education 220 

XXVII. Influence of Knowledge upon Agriculture 223 

XXVIIL Sciences to be taught 225 

XXIX. Chemical Science 226 

XXX. Analysis of Soils 228 

Soils of Heaths 229 

XXXL Natural Science 237 

XXXII. Model Farm 239 

XXXIII. Experimental Farm 240 

XXXIV. Economical Arrangements at the Agricultural College 240 

XXXV. Plan of an Agricultural Institution for tlie United States. ...244 

XXXVI. Elevation of Agriculture as a Pursuit and a Profession 248 

XXXVII. Rural Manners in England 251 

XXXVIII. A Pencil Sketch 2.52 

XXXIX. Life in the Country 256 



fXDEX. V 

PAGE 

XL. Veterinary College 257 

XLI. Museum of Economic Geology 263 

XLII. Chemical Agricultural Association in Scotland 265 

XLIII. Chemical Agricultural Lectures 267 

XLIV. Employment of Agriculturists 268 

XLV. Guano 270 



FOURTH REPORT. 



XLVL 

XLVn. 

XLVIII. 

XLIX. 

L. 

LL 



LII. 



LIII. 
LIV. 



LV. 

LVI. 



General Considerations 285 

Agriculture as a Commercial Pursuit. 294 

Markets. Cattle Markets 297 

Falkirk Tryst 29'J 

The Ballinasloe Fair 300 

The Galway Fair 301 

1. Temperance in Ireland 301 

2. The Galway Women 302 

Smithfield, London • 304 

1. Forms of Business in Smithfield 306 

2. Weights and Measures 307 

3. Weight of Animals, Mode of ascertaining 308 

4. Amount of Business 312 

.5. Character and Quality of Stock 314 

6. Smithfield by Night 317 

7. Attempted Removal of the Market from the City 319 

8. Chartered Rights 321 

Grain Markets 323 

Kinds of Bread. Maize, or Indian Corn 324 

Grain Markets out of London 3"25 

1. Forms of Business 326 

2. Advantages and Convenience of such Markets in the 

United States 327 

3. Modes of Selling 328 

4. Multiplication of Markets in England 329 

The Corn Exchange in Mark Lane, London 330 

Corn Duties 330 

1. Arguments for Protection 332 

2. Arguments against Protection 333 

3. Moral Views of the Question 334 

4. Patriotism and Philanthropy 334 



VI 



INDEX. 



LVII. 



5. Proper Ends of National Policy 335 

6. Bread regarded in a peculiar Liglit 330 

7. Peculiar Condition of the English Laboring Population. . . .337 

8. Excess of Population 3-39 

Mode of adjusting Labor and Wages 34x 

1. Experiment in Germany 342 

2. Claims of Labor, and Duties of Wealth 343 

3. Results of the German Experiment 345 

4. Scotch Customs. A Digression 346 

The Dead-Meat Markets 347 

1. Slaughter-Houses in London 349 

2. Customs of the Jews 351 

3. Mode of slaughtering Animals 352 

Vegetable and Fruit Markets 355 

Market Gardens 373 

Covent-Garden Market 378 

1. Fruits and Vegetables 378 

2. Flowers 380 

LXII. General Markets 38:^ 



LVIIL 



LIX. 

LX. 

LXL 



FIFTH REPORT. 

LXIL General Markets, (continued.) 385 

LXIIL General Remarks and Divisions of the Subject of English 

Farming 386 

LXIV. The Soil 389 

LXV. Theories of the Operation of the Soil 392 

LXVL A Modern Discovery 398 

LXVIL Soils of Great Britain 401 

LXVIIL Classification of Soils 403 

LXIX. Physical Properties of the Soil 404 

1. Wetness of a Soil '. 404 

2. Power to absorb Moisture in a Soil 405 

3. Consistency and Friability of Soils 407 

4. Temperature of Soils 408 

LXX. Peaty Soil 410 

LXXL Loamy Soils 412 

LXXIL Humus, or Vegetable Mould 413 

LXXIII. Peculiarities of Soil 41G 

LXXIV. Application of Chemistry to Agriculture 417 



INDEX. vn 

« PAGE. 

LXXV. Theory of Agriculture 418 

LXXVI. Actual Improvements 420 

LXXVII. Ploughing 421 

LXXVIII. The English Character. A Digression 422 

LXXIX. The Perfection of Ploughing 423 

LXXX. Ploughing Match at Saffron Walden 424 

LXXXI, General Rules for Ploughing 427 

1. Lapping in Plougliing 433 

2. Ribbing, or Raftering 433 

3. Laying in Beds, or Stitches 434 

4. Lazy-Bed Cultivation 43G 

5. Correct Ploughing 440 

6. Trench-Ploughing 443 

7. Subsoil-Ploughing. 448 

8. Experiment in Subsoiling Heath Land 451 

9. Subturf-Plough 454 

10. Perfection of English Ploughing 454 

11. Ploughing Matches 456 

12. Horses used for Ploughing 459 

LXXXn. A Digression.' 461 

LXXXIIL Improved Machinery 462 

1. Machinery lightens Labor. 462 

2. Machinery increases Production 464 

3. General Effects on Labor 466 

LXXXIV. Moral Considerations 468 

LXXXV. Harrowing 46f» 

LXXXVI. Scarifying, or Grubbing 47^ 

LXXXVII. General Remarks on the Use of Agricultural Machinery.. . .483 
LXXXVIII. Particular Examples of Improvement 485 

1. Tehidy 485 

2. •Scobell's Farm 486 

LXXXIX. Cornwall and the Land's End 491 

Table of Calculations on Ploughing 492 

a* 



Viii INDEX. 



STEEL ENGRAVINGS. 

The English Cart Horse Fronting title page to first volume. 

A Fii-st Prize Short-Horned Bull Frontispiece to Second Report. 

A West Highland Ox do Third Report 

A North Devon Steer do Fourth Report. 

An Aherdeenshire lolled Bull do Fifth Report. 



WOOD CUTS. 

FAOE. 

Side Supports for Posts 20 

Fork Spade 122 

Smith's Subsoil Plough 455 

Rackheath Subsoil Plough 455 

Subturf Plough 455 

Double Furrow Plough 461 

Gang of Light Seed Harrows 472 

Heavy Iron Harrows 473 

Biddell's Extirpating Harrow 475 

Scarifier 479 

Chisel Point and Wide Hoe, to Biddell's Scarifier. 480 

Finlayson's Self-cleaning Harrow 481 

Kirkwood's Grubber • 481 

The Uley Cultivator 482 



NAMES OF SUBSCUIBEES 



TO THE FIRST EDITION, 



Massachusetts Agri- 
cultural Society, 

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ricultural Society, 

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Agricultural So- 
ciety, 

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cultural Society, 

American Institute, 

Essex County Agri- 
cultural Society, 

Massachusetts Hor- 
ticultural Society, 

Monroe County Ag- 
ricultural Society, 

Plymouth Agricul- 
tural Society, 

Berkshire County" 
Agricultural So- 
ciety, 

Hampshire, Hamp- 
den, and Franklin 
Ag. Society, 

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of Newcastle, Del- 
aware, 

Livingston County 
Agricultural So- 
ciety, 
Library of Congress, 
Rhode Island Socie- 
ty of Domestic 
Man. and Ag. 



Copies. 
I Boston, Mass. 100 
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C Worcester, Mass. 40 

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I Essex Co., Mass. 25 

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Plymouth, Mass. 25 

Pittsfield, Mass. 10 



' Northampton, 
Mass. 



10 



.Wilmington, Del. 10 

* Geneseo, Living- 
' stonCo.,N. Y^ 10 

Washington, D. CIO 
> Providence, R. I. 5 



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Hon. T. H. Perkins, Boston, Mass. 

Samuel Appleton, " 

Joshua Blake, 

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Daniel P. Parker, 

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William Appleton, " 

Henry Codman, " 

John A. Lowell, 

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B. B. Mussey & Co. " 



100 
50 
25 
25 
25 
25 
25 
25 
25 
25 
25 
13 



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Hon. Martin Brimmer, ) 
Mayor of Boston, 5 
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Boston, Mass. 



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12 
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10 
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NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



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George Browne, 

Henry L. Daggett, " 

AVilliam Foster, '•' 
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Ellis Gray Loring, '•' 

Edmund Jackson, '■ 

James Boyd, " 

Samuel Cabot, " 

J. Baker, " 

John Pickens, '• 

Henry Gassett, '•' 

John Lamson, " 

Hon. Stephen Fairbanks, " 

Caleb Andrews, '•' 

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Rev. G. AV. Blagden, '• 

Thomas B. Curtis, " 

AV. T. Eustis, " 

Thomas Lee, " 

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Rev. Louis Dwight, " 

N. C. Keep, M. D. '• 

Charles McBurney, " 



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NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



XI 



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John Haskins, Boston, Mass. 

Otis, Broadcrs, & Co. " 

Edward Chamberlain, " 

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Miss Clara Crowninshield, " 
Henry Jaques, 

Mace Tisdale, Jr. " 

Charles C. Mead, " 

Wm. R. Deane, " 

C. P. Bosson, " 

Thomas Davis, 
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Joseph lasigi, " 

A. B. Weston, '' 

John G. Chandler, '^' 

Henry Rice, 

Hotchkiss & Co. " 

Chs. R. Bond & Co. " 

Jas. Ellison, " 

Hatch & Co. '' 

Z. Hosmer, " 

M. Field Fowler, "' 

John Preston, " 

Wm. A. Davis, " 

E. Haskett Derby, '' 

R. S. Denny, " 

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Chs. C. Parsons, " 

Walter Baker, " 

D. P. Simpson, " 

E. B. Chase, " 
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S. G. Howe, M. D., South Boston, Mass. 
James Brown, Watertown, Mass. 

Wm. A. White, " 

Joseph Story, LL.D., Cambridge, Mass. 
Josiah Quincy, LL. D. ) « 

Pres. ot'Harv. Univ. J 
Rev. Andrews Norton, " 

William Pomeroy, " 

Prof. James Walker, D. D. " 
N. J. Wyeth, " 

O. S. Keith, " 

Prof. Jared Sparks, " 

Rev. R. M. Hodges, " 

J. E. Worcester, " 

Rev. Wm. Newell, " 

Charles C. Little, " 

Rev. Daniel Austin, " 

Hon. Theodore Lyman, Brookline, Mass. 
Benjamin Goddard, " 

John Howe, " 

Rev. John Pierce, D. D. " 
Moses Jones, " 

Samuel Philbrick, " 

John Havden, " 

Samuel NVeld, Roxbury, Mass. 

A. D. Williams, Jr. 

Rev. George Putnam, '■ 

Rev. Allen Putnam, " 

Hon. Sam'l H. Walley, Jr. " 

George R. Russell, West Roxbury, Mass. 

Joseph H. Billings, " 



Copies 
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Aaron D. Weld, " 

George Ripley, '" 

William Keith, 
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John Prince, Jamaica Plains, Roxbury, 
Francis C. Head, " 

Gen. Wm. H. Sumner, " 
Charles W. Greene, " 

Stephen M. Weld, " 

John J. Low, 

M. W. Greene, " 

Benjamin D. Emerson, " 
John M. Fessenden, '^'^ 

F. E. Faxon, 

Isaac Parker, Waltham, Mass. 

Benj. Wellington, " 

Rev. George E. Ellis, Charlestown, Mass. 
Samuel Jaques, 

John Fenno, Chelsea, Mass. 

Hon. Jno. Quincy Adams, ) Quincy, Mass 

Ex-President of U. b. S ' 

Rev. Francis Cunningham, Milton, Mass. 
Joseph Rowe, " 

Danforth P. Wight, M. D., Dedham, Mass 
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George Richardson, Dorchester Mass. 
Increase S. Smith, " 

F. W. Macondray, " 

Joseph Peabody, Salem, Mass. 

Hon. S. C. Phillips, " 

Nathaniel West, " 

Hon. Nathaniel Silsbee, " 
Francis Peabody, " 

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Hon. D. L. Pickman, " 

Robert Stone, " 

John H. Silsbee, " 

Hon. D. A. White, " 

J. H. Ward, 
. Asahel Huntington, " 

^ Wm. F. Gardner, " 

2 Jno. Fisk Allen, " 

2 Jno. C. Lee, 

1 Amos Choate, " 

1 D. A. Neal, " 

1 John G. King, " 

1 Oliver Hubbard, M. D. " 

1 Benjamin Merrill, " 

1 Wm. Deane, 

1 Charles Saunders, " 

1 David Merritt, "^ 

1 John Jewett, 
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2 Nathaniel Frothingham, Jr." 
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1 Jno. F. Andrew, " 
1 Nathan Endicott, " 
1 Hon. G. Barstow, " 
1 Joseph S. Leavitt, " 
1 E. Hersey Derby, " 
1 Gideon Tucker, 
1 D. & J. Pulsifer, " 
1 A. & D. Lord, " 
1 1 Benjamin F. Bro-ivne, " 



10 
5 
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3 
2 
2 
2 
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2 
2 



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NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



• Taunton, Mass. 



Copies, 
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Pickering Dodge, " 

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Gen. Wm. Sutton, " 

Jos. G. Waters, " 

Hon. Stephen P. "Webb, " 
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Caleb Foote, " 

AVm. Ives, " 

John W. Pepper, " 

John G. Treadwell, M. D. " 
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N. W. Neal, 

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James Chamberlain, " 

B. K. Churchill, " 

Henry Whipple, " 

Henry A. Breed, Lynn, Mass. 
Hon. Marcus Morton, 

Ex-Gov. of Mass. 
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S. B. Woodward,' M. D. " 2 

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Governor of Mass. ) 
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Governor of Mass. ) 
Daniel Waldo, " 1 

Joseph G. Kendall, " 1 

Edwin Conant, " 1 

John W. Lincoln, " 1 

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William Lincoln, " 1 

A. D. Foster, " 1 
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Wm. A. Lander, Danvers, Mass. 2 
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Jno. W. Proctor, " 2 
Benjamin Wheeler, " 1 
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Edward Tappan, Jr. " 1 
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B. B. Titcomb, " 1 
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Moses Newell, West Newbury, l^Iass. 1 
Wells Lathrop, South Hadley, Mass. 1 
Hon. David Cummins, Springfield, Mass. 2 
Hon. W. B. Calhoun, " 1 



Copies 

Jas. W. Crooks, Springfield, Mass. 
Justin Ely, West Springfield, Mass. 
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Joseph Howe, Methuen, Mass. 
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A. Robeson, Jr. " 
Wm. R. Robeson, " 
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Geo. Hodges, North Andover, Mass. 

N. W. Hazen, South Andover, Mass. 

D. L. Child, Northampton, Mass. 

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Rev. Rufus EUis, " 

Edward Clarke, " 

AVm. Clarke, " 

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Daniel Stebbins", M. D. " 

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Hon. C. K. Grennell, " 

Alpheus F. Stone, M. D. 

Daniel Wells, " 

Wendell P. Davis, 

Henrv W. Clapp, 

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James Deane, M. D. " 

Rev. Samuel Mav, Leicester, Mass. 

W. B. Earle, 

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William Kenrick. " 

G. B. Slater, Webster, Mass. 

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George Wr Wright, " 

Henry Swift, " 

Barker Burnell, " 

John P. Webber, Jr. Beverly, Mass. 

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Horace Williams, Deerfield, Mass. 

Arthur W. Hoyt, " 

Theodore G. Huntington, Hadley, Mass. 

Col. David Wells, Shelburne, Mass. 

.James N. Bates, Barre, Mass. 

B. D. Whitney, Northboro' Mass. 
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S. W. Rodman, " 
Benjamin Rodman, " 
George Randall, " 
Charles W. Morgan, " 

John Henry Clifford, " 

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William P. Grinnell, " 

William Rotch, Jr. " 

William R. Rotch, " 

Edmund Gardiner, " 

William C. Whitridge, 



NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



Xlll 



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William Hathaway, Jr., New Bedford, 
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J. H. W. Page, " 

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Joseph Ricketson, " 

Daniel Ricketson, " 

Abraham Shearman, Jr. " 

John W. Coggeshall, 
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John Avery, " 

Samuel Lawrence, " 

"William Spencer, " 

B. F. French, " 

Alexander Wright, " 

S. W. Stickney, " 

John Nesmith, " 

G. W. Larrabee, " 

John Clark, " 

Rev. H. A. Miles, " 

William Boott, " 

Daniel Bixby, " 

Amasa Farrier, Stoneham, Mass. 
John Abbott, Westford, Mass. 
H. C. Merriam, North Tewksbury, Mass. 
N. B. Robbins, Plymouth, Mass. 
Mrs. Susan Sedgwick, Stockbridge, Mass. 
Elias M. Stillwell, Lancaster, Mass. 
Paul Whitin, Whitinsville, Mass. 
John Page, Hardwick, Mass. 
S. B. AValcott, Hopkinton, Mass. 

Johnson Gardner, M. D. J ^^^f^s.^'^''''" ^ 

William Jenkins, Providence, R. I. 5 

Alexander Duncan, " 3 

Moses B. Ives, " 2 

Rev. Samuel Osgood, 

Joseph Mauran, M. D. 

Samuel B. Wheaton, 

William H. Hoppin, 

Amory Chapin, 

Edward Walcott, 

Hartford Tingley, 

Robert H. Ives, 

Amasa Sprague, 

R. W. Greene, 

Rev. F. Wayland, D. D., 

Pres. of Brown Univ. 
Henry Anthony, 
John I. Stimpson, 
Benjamin W. Comstock, 
Stephen H. Smith, 
Hon. James Fenner, 

Gov. of Rhode Island 
Owen Mason, 

Matthew Watson, " 

Josiah Chapin, " 

Adam Anthony, North Providence, R. I 
Mark Antony De Wolfe, Bristol, R. I. 
Wm. Bradford De Wolfe, 
Jacob Dunncll, Pawtucket, R. I. 
James C. Rome, Woonsocket, R. I. 
Henrv Whitney, New Haven, Conn. 
Prof. 'B. Silliman, LL. D. " 
Charles Robinson, " 

Winthrop Atwill, " 

Prof. B. Silliman, Jr. " 

William K. Townsend, " 



d 



Copies. 
Hon. Wm. H. Boardman, N. Haven, Con. 
J. T. Norton, Farmington, Conn. 

Simeon Hart, " 

E. W. Carrington, " 

W. AVadsworth, " 

Timothy Cowlcs, " 

S. H. Huntington, Hartford, Conn. 
Horatio Alden, " 

A. M. Collins, " 

D. C. Collins, 

Charles F. Pond, " 

Hon. Jno. M. Niles, " 

E. W. Bull, 

George Tuttle, " 

T. C. Perkins, " 

Hon. J. Toucey, " 

Walter Mitchell, " 

S. G. Chaffee, " 

James Dixon, " 

Isaac Stuart, " 

George Brimlcy, " 

Solomon Porter, " 

Solomon Olmsted, East Hartford, Conn. 
Charles H. Olmsted, " 

S. E. Alden, Enfield, Conn. 
Henry Thompson, " 
Levi Durand, Derby, Conn. 
Charles A. Goodrich, Berlin, Conn. 
Norman Porter, " 

Chas. W. Rockwell, Norwich, Conn. 
Jacob W. Kinney, " 

Amos H. Hubbard, " 

William P. Green, " 

John A. Rockwell, " 

Ralph H. Avery, " 

E. B. Brown, Mystic, Conn. 
Joseph Griswold, Mystic Bridge, Conn. 
A. Woodward, M. D., FrankUn, Conn. 
H. A. Dyer, Brooklyn, Conn. 
Wm. G. Johnson, Uncasville, Conn. 
J. S. Halsey, Preston, Conn. 
Giles Taintor, Windham, Conn. 
Hon. C. F. Cleveland, P „ . n 
Ex. Gov. of Conn. ' ^arapton. Conn. 

Daniel Russell, Portland, Conn. 

Joseph Hall, " 

Joel Hall, 2d, 

E. AY. N. Starr, Middletown, Conn. 

Sam'l D. Hubbard, 

Alfred Hubbard, " 

Charles Hubbard, " 

Samuel Russell, " 

Joseph Hurlbut, New London, Conn. 

Chas. A Lewis, " 

Wm. P. Cleveland, " 

Wm. W. Billings, 

Lemuel Stoughton, East Windsor, Conn. 

Azel S. Bowe, •' 

Erastus Ellsworth, " 

Henry Watson, " 

Ralph R. Phelps, Manchester, Conn. 

E. Holcomb, Granby, Conn. 

D. W. Grant, Bloomfield, Conn. 

Fillcy, 

Hon. G. Merrick, S. Glastonbury, Conn. 
Daniel Packer, Packersville, Conn. 
Bethuel Phelps, Warehouse Pt., Conn. 
Alvah Morrell, " 

F. W. Wilcox, Salem, Conn. 
Lucian T. Pearson, CoUinsville, Conn. 



NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



Copies. 
Bangor Mercantile Li- ) j^ ^j_ j 

brary Association, ) ° ' 
E. C. Andrews, Portland, Me. 4 

H. J. Little, " 2 

.James Deering, " 

Joshua Richardson, " 
William Willis, " 

Neal Dow, " 

•John Otis, Hallowell, Me. 

Glazier, Masters, & Smith, " 
Hon. Rcuel Williams, Augusta, Me. 
Hon. Samuel M. Pond, Bucksport, Me. 
W. A. Hayes, South Berwick, Me. 
n. B. Allen, Belfast, Me. 
E. Seymour, Brattleboro', Vt. 
John H. Hopkins, Jr., Burlington, Vt. 
Rev. John Wheeler, D. D. 
Prof. Geo. W. Benedict, " 

E. T. Englesby, " 

H. B. Stacey, " 

N. B. Haswell, " 

Harry Bradley, " 

Hon.' Geo. P. Marsh, " 

Jno. N. Pomeroy, " 

Carlos Baxter, " 

Luther Loomis, " 

N. A. Tucker, " 

•David Read, " 

H. S. Morse, Shelburne, Vt. 
L. S. White, " 

S. Grout, Bellows Falls, Vt. 
Charles K. Field, Newfane, Vt. 
Hon. Wm. Jarvis, Weathersfield, Vt. 
Jos. P. Fairbanks, St. Johnsbury, Vt. 
George W. Palmer, Brandon, Vt. 
Hon. Levi Woodbury, Portsmouth, N. H. 
Hon. Ichabod Bartlett, '•' 

Samuel Lord, " 

John Rice, '■' 

Jno. N. Sherburne, " 

H. W. Peirce, " 

Rev. John Parkman, Dover, N. H. 
R. B. David, Amherst, N. H. 
Josiah H. Hobbs, Wakefield, N. H. 
Levi Bartlett, Warner, N. H. 
W. B. Walton, Schenectady, N. Y. 
Rev. John Williams, " 

Jona. Crane, " 

Prof. Alonzo Potter, D. D. " 
Prof. J. W. Jackson, " 

D. & C. H. Tomlinson, 
Alexander Walsh, Lansingburgh, N. Y. 
Maj. Gen. John I. Viele, " 
Alfred Clarke, East Springfield, N. Y. 
John B. James, Rhinebcck, N. Y. 
John H. Walsh, Newburgh, N. Y. 
Charles Downing, " 

A. J. Downing, '' 

H. D. Grove, Hoosick, N. Y. 
Anthony Van Bergen, Coxsackie, N. Y. 
Tunis J. Van Derveer, Amsterdam, N. Y. 
Willis Gaylord, Otisco, N. Y. 

D. D. Campbell, Rotterdam, N. Y. 
James R. Craig, Niskayuna, N. Y. 
J. Strachan, Waterford, N. Y. 

E. D. Windt, Fishkill, Landing, N. Y. 
Peter C. Dubois, " 
William S. Ver Planck, " 
John 15. Wakeman, Little Falls, N. Y. 
John Caldwell, Salisbury, N. Y. 



Copies. 
Dr. William Bristol, Utica, N. Y. 
E. AV. Teackle, " 

S. D. Childs, " 

Capt. William Mervine, " 
Edmund A. Wetmore, " 
Theodore P. Ballou, " 

Hamilton Spencer, " 

S. V. Aley, " 

John M. Sherwood, Auburn, N. Y. 5 

John B. Dill, " 5 

Hon. Wm. H. Seward, > „ o 

Ex-Gov. of New York, 5 ^ 

James C. Derby, " 1 

E. Rhodes, Manlius, N. Y. 1 

L. A. Morrell, Lansing, N. Y. 2 

P. V. C. Miller, Shawangunk, N. Y. 1 

W. A. S. North, Duanesburgh, N. Y. 1 

L. W. Hall & Co., Syracuse, N. Y. 5 

P. N. Rust, " 2 

Rev. J. P. B. Storer, " 1 

Russell Kniffen, Trenton, N. Y. 1 

Elon Comstock, Rome, N. Y. 1 

Benjamin P. Johnson, " 1 

Benjamin N. Huntingdon," 1 

Robert Sandford, Lenox, N. Y. 1 

M. R. Patrick, Waterto^vn, N. Y. 1 
Henry S. Randall, Cortlandville, N. Y, 1 

George I. Pumpelly, Oswego, N. Y. 25 

Hon- Gerrit V. J g^^^^^ p^^i^^ j^y^ 45 

Wiiliam A. Sacket, " 

Samuel D. Tillman, " 

C. M. Crittenden, " 

A. S. & C. W. Dey, 
Thomas H. Swaby, " 

C. L. Hoskins, " 

William Arnett, " 

H. C. Silsby, " 

George B. Daniels, " 

Edward Myndun, " 

Thomas C. Magee, Tyre, N. Y. 
Jason Smith, " 

David Southwick, " 

J. W. Bacon, Waterloo, N. Y. 
Richard P. Hunt, " 

Aaron D. Lane, " 

J. Lisk, Junius, N. Y. 

John Carman, " 

Orrin Southwick, " 

William K. Strong, Fayette, N. Y. 
John Johnstone, " 

Henry Reeder, Varick, N. Y. 
John D. Cox, Romulus, N. Y. 
G. Dickerson, Covert, N. Y. 

Jeremiah Rappleye, " 

A. M. Farley, " 

Abraham Ditmus, " 

Anson Hopkins, " 

John L. Eastman, Lodi, N. Y. 
P. W. Severance, " 

John De Mott, " 

Arad Joy, Ovid, N. Y. 

A. B. Dunlap, •' 

William R. Schuyler, '*' 
Andrew Dunlap, Jr. " 

C. I. Sutton, " 

Henry Simpson, " 

Joseph Craven, " 

Hugh Chapman, " 

Daniel Scott, " 



NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



XV 



Copies. 
John I. Covert, Ovid, N. Y. 1 

Henry M. Ward, Hochester, NY. 3 

Samuel D. Forter, '' 3 

L. B. LansTworthy, " 2 

Matthew iBrown, M. D. " 

C. F. Grossman, " 
Henry I. Whitehouse, D. D. " 

fibenezer AVatts, '•' 

F. Whittlesey, " 

George F. Danforth, " 

E. Darwin Smith, " 

E. Poraeroy, " 

Graham H. Chapin, " 

Edward M. Moore, M. D. " 

E. G. Munn, M. D. " 

W. W. Alcott, " 

James H. Watts, " 

Nathaniel T. Rochester, " 

Henry E. Rochester, " 

Thomas H. Rochester, " 

William Pitkin, " 

Samuel Miller, " 

Silas O. Smith, " 

Ellwantrer & Barry, " 

Maltby "Strong, M. D. "_ 

Amos Sawyer, '•' 

Strong & Dawson, " 

John Hawks, " 

John A. Pitts, '•' 

M. B. Bateham, " 

Lewis Tliies, " 

Aristarchus Champion, " 

Josiah SnoWj " 

Alexander Kelsey, M. D. " 

John Allen, " 

Fletcher M. Haight, " 

M. F. Reynolds, " 

A. Gardiner, " 
I. F. Mack, 

Philander Davis, " 

Robert Wilson, " 

Moses Chapin, " 

Samuel G. Andrews, " 

E. F. Smith, " 
Hon. Thomas J. Patterson, " 

W. E. Lathrop, " 
John F. Bush, 

John Haywood, " 

Prof. Chester Dewey, " 

N. B. Northrop, " 

James AV. Sawyer, " 

John Rolph, M. D. " 

James Miller, " 

Darius Perrin, '"' 

Rev. Tryon Edwards, " 

Charles Hendrix, " 

David R Barton, " 

Jasper W. Gilbert, " 

Everard Peck, " 
Frederick F. Backus, M. D. " 

Elias Pond, " 

Isaac M. Hall & Co. " 

Horatio N. Fenn, M. D. " 

Frederick Starr, " 

L. A. Ward, " 

Stephen Atwater, " 

David Hoyt, " 

Leander Wetherell, " 

George Sheltou, " 

H. L. Stevens, " 

VOL. I. ff 



John Briggs; Rochester, N. Y. 

R. Haight, " 
Hon. Thomas Kempshall, " 
Joseph Hall, 

Charles R. Babbett, " 

Hiram Smith, " 

Lewis Brooks, " 

Abelard Reynolds, " 

Hiram Blanchard, " 

Reuben Sikes, " 

George Whitney, " 

Samuel B. Chase, " 

William W. Mumford, " 

W. A. Herrick, "^ 
John Fish, 
John Gifford, 

Aaron Errickson, " 

Allen Mason, " 
William Kidd, 

William Buell, " 

John B. Elwood, M. D. " 

Charles O. Shepard, " 

Francis Brown, " 

Thomas H. Hyatt, " 

William Gerry, " 

William Brewster, " 

School District No. 15, " 

William Law, " 

Lewis Denny, " 

Ephraim Moore, " 

Josiah W. Bissell, " 

William H. Cheney, " 

David Scoville, " 

Joseph Strong, " 

George A. Wilkins, " 

J. George Hodgkins, " 

Nathan B. Garnsey, " 
Hon. John Greig, Canandaigua, N. 

Hon. Francis Granger, " 

Henry Howard, " 

John Rankin, '"' 

Oliver Phelps, " 

Charles B. Meek, " 

John A. Granger, '" 

William R. Macao, " 

Henry K. Sanger, " 

Hon. Mark H. Sibley, " 

Thomas Hall, " 

Charles Shepard, " 

Francis W. Paul, " 

Thaddeus Chapin, " 

Walter Hubbell, " 

Alvah Worden, " 

Charles Seymour, " 

Isaac Pierson, " 

Thomas H. Johns, " 

Samuel H. Andi-ews, " 

Jos. Bull, " 

J. L. Stuart Menteath, " 

Alexander Murray, " 

William Burling, " 

Myron H. Clark, " 

Henry Howe, " 

Jared Wilson, " 

Robert Highani, " 
G. R. Parbutt, 

R. C. Pratts, " 
Oliver Culver. Brighton, N. Y. 
Daniel P. Bissell, Moscow, N. Y. 
S. B. Piper, Lewiston, N. Y. 



Copies. 



XVI 



NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



Copies. 
John S. Shuler, M. D., Lockport, N. Y, 
James D. Shuler, " 

Timothy Backus, " 

Wm. A.'Townsend, M.D. " 

F. N. Nelson, " 
T. T. Flagler, « 
Aaron Parsons, " 
Hon. AVashington Hunt, " 

A. A. Boyce, " 
S. Scovill, " 
Edward Hardy, " 
N. Dayton, " 
O. P. Hoag, " 
J. Kilbourn, " 
Hon. Joel McCollum, " 
Trumbull Gary, Batavia, N. Y. 
Chipman P. Turner, " 
H. M. Soper, " 
T. Fitch, " 
J. S. Ganson, " 
Junius A. Smith, " 
Frederick FoUett, " 
Albert Smith, " 
J. L. Brown, " 
Ambro.se Stevens, " 
E.iifus Robertson, " 
James D. Merrill, " 
Shubael Dunham, " 
Lucius A. Smith, " 
James Brisbane, " 
Samuel Heston, " 
Byron Densmore, Kendall, N. Y. 
Moses B. Gage, " 
H. AV. Bates, " 
N. Whitney, " 
Henry Higgins, " 
Benjamin Gariss, Jr., Bloomfield, N. Y. 
Ralph Wilcox, " 
Rev. Robert W. Hill, " 
Frederick F. Rice, " 
William H. Hall, 
Myron Adams, " 

B. C. Taft, West Bloomfield, N. Y. 
Jasper C. Peck, " 
John Dickson, " 
Joseph Hall, " 
O. Thompson, " 
William H. Olin, 
Philo Hamlin, East Bloomfield, N. Y. 

G. Collins, " 
Frederick A. Spalding, " 
Svlvanus Emmons, " 
M. S. Newton, Lima, N. Y. 
M. W. Brown, " 
Henry Grout, " 
William Arnold, Jr. " 
George W. Atwill, " 
Erastus Clark, " 
Ira Godfrey, " 
George E. King, " 
Alexander Martin, " 
Robert T. Leach, " 
Clitus Wolcott, Oakfield, N. Y. 
P. M. Smith, Le Roy, N. Y. 
Peter Snell, " 
John Lent, " 
William Sheldon, " 
A. B. Murphy, " 
J. H. Stanley, " 
Ebenezer !Mcad, " 



Copies. 
S. ^V. Olmsted, Le Roy, N. Y. 

Noah D. Hart, 
William W. Peck, 
Cyrus Brown, Pembroke, N. Y. 
William Cathcart, " 

Rawson Harmon, Jr., Wheatland, N. Y. 
John J. Blackmer, " 

Joseph Garlinghouse, Richmond, N. Y. 
Hiram Pitts, " 

J. C. Shelton, " 

Elias S. Gilbert, " 

Asa Nowlen, Avon, N. Y. 

Hon. Henry L. Young, " 
Luther Brigscs, Brockport, N. Y. 
Hon. E. B. Holmes, " 

Horace Wheeler, Honeoye Falls, N. Y. 
John A. Davis, " 

Stephen Barrett, " 

John Christopher, Gates, N. Y. 
Charles Godfrey, Geneva, N. Y. 

Rt. Rev. Wm. H. Delancey, " 
Robert C. Nicholas, " 

Jos. Fellows, " 

James Reese, " 

Gideon Lee, " 

Thomas D. Burrall, " 

Elisha Johnson, Hornby Lodge, N. Y. 
George W. Patterson, Westfield, N. Y. 
C. Robinson, Clarendon, N. Y. 
Charles Lee, Farmingham, N. Y. 
Isaac Colvin, Henrietta, N. Y. 

M. W. Kirby, 

West Henrietta Library, " 
William C. Cornell, 
James S. Wadsworth, Geneseo, N. Y. 10 
W. W. Wadsworth, " 5 

James Wadsworth, " 5 

A. Ayrault, " 3 

E. A. Le Roy, " 2 

Thomas H. Newbold, " 2 

Daniel H. Fitzhugh, ♦' 

George T. Olyphant " 

C. it. Bryan, " 

David Piftard, " 

H. A. Wilmerding, " 

William H. Spencer, " 

Samuel Fitzhugh, Mount Morris, N. Y, 
Lucius Southwick, " 

J. R. Murray, " 

William T. Cuvler, Cuylerville, N. Y. 
N. W. Gardner, Royalton, N. Y. 
Anson Packard, Bristol, N. Y. 
Lewis F. Allen, Black Rock, N. Y. 
N. K. Hall, Buffalo, N. Y. 

Hon. Millard Fillmore, '' 
A. & J. McArthur, " 

P. Whitney, Niagara Falls, N. Y. 
Luther Wilson, Wilson, N. Y. 
John Robinson, Palmyra, N. Y. 
Micah Brooks, Brooks Grove, N. Y. 
Hon. Asher Tyler, Ellicottville, N. Y 
Abiel Baldwin, Clarkson, N. Y. 
Owen Edmonston, Phelps, N. Y. 
E. Willnrd Frisbie, 
S. Hildreth, 

Carso Crane, " 

Elias Cost, " 

John Lapham, Farmington, N. Y. 
A. Oliver, Penn Yann, N. Y. 
Henry Welles, " 



NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



XVll 



Copies. 



S. S. Ellsworth, Penn Yan, N. Y. 

D. A. Ogden, " 

George A. Shepard, " 

H. P. Sartwell, " 

Abraham Wagener, " 

Alfred Brown, " 

Uri Judd, M. D. " 

Jonathan A. Hall, " 

Nelson Tunnicliff', " 

P. S. Oliver, 

S. R. Fish, 

L. E. Lapham, " 

John Hatmaker, Milo Centre, N. Y. 

A. B. Hull, Angelica, N. Y. 

George Fisher, Oswego, N. Y. 

George Dean, Westmoreland, N. Y". 

Henry Chamberlain, York, N. Y. 

David McDonald, " 

Edward Brown, " 

HoUowway Long, " 

G. O. J. Du Ilelle, M. D. " 

Paul Goddard, " 

John HoUowway, " 

John P. Root, " 

F. A. Gray, " 

Campbell Harris, " 

J. B. Harris, " 

James Gilmour, " 

Roswell Stocking, " 

Angus McBean, " 

Artemas Blake, " 

Reuben Lafever, Reading, N. Y. 

George Edwards, Bath, N. Y. 

J. C. Fuller, Skeneateles, N. Y. 

R. H. Foster, Lyons, N. Y. 

James Dunn, " 

John M. Holly, " 

A. L. Beaumont, " 

A. Hyde Call, Albion, N. Y. 

Asa Rowe, Sweden, N. Y. 

William D. Dickenson, Victor, N. Y. 

John B. French, " 

W. W. Marsh, 

George J. Jessup, Palmyra, N. Y. 

Stephen Hyde, " 

Jonathan Townsend, " 

Samuel E. Hudson, Newark, N. Y. 

Cyrus S. Bulton, " 

Daniel Kenyon, " 

John B. Crosby, Rush, N. Y. 

Joseph Sibley, West Rush, N. Y. 

Daniel H. Burtiss, Chili, N. Y. 

Elisha Whittlesey, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Lcdyard Lincklaen, Cazenovia, N. Y. 

Hon. Leman Gibbs, Livonia, N. Y. 

Hon. J. Larrowe, Hammondsport, N. Y. 

Ralph Plumb, Buffalo, N. Y. 

Abner Bryant, " 

Albert H. Tracy, " 

Samuel Hecox, " 

I. A. Blossom, " 

Lewis Eaton, " 

John Craig, Middleport, N. Y. 

William R. Gwinn, Medina, N. Y. 

Silas M. Burroughs, *' 

John & George Kirby, " 

Orrin Scoville, " 

Hon. R. H Smith, Perry, N. Y. 

Josiah Andrews, " 

Mosely Stoddard, " 



Copies 
Hon. James McNair, Dansville, N. Y. 1 
Moses S. Cole, Parma, N. Y. 1 

John Sargent, Mendon, N. Y. 1 

Joseph Cox, Scottsvillc, N. Y. 1 

Isaac Cox, " 1 

W. W. Wilcox, Irondequoit, N. Y. 1 

Alexander A. Hooker, " 1 

D. H. Buel, Benton Centre, N. Y. 1 

Asa Foote, Middlesex, N. Y. 1 

Ira Merrill, West Avon, N. Y. 1 

Saxton & Miles, New York City, 60 

Charles A. Stetson, " " 10 

D. K. Minor, " 10 

J. Prescott Hall, " 5 

James G. King, " 5 

James Lenox, " 5 

I. F. Sheaf, " 5 

R. B. Minturn, " 3 

Rev. John O. Choules, " 2 

S. Verplanck, " 2 

Jonathan Goodhue, " 2 

M. H. Grinnell, " 2 

Robert B. Coleman, " 2 

Rev. Joseph Penney, D. D. " 
George Bird, " 

H. M. Hayes, " 

L. N. Fowler, " 

William H. Aspinwall, " 

Pelatiah Perit, " 

Curtis Holmes, " 

Joseph G. Cogswell, " 

William Partridge, " 

David Felt, " 

William H. Gary, " 

William Emerson, " 

Lewis Tappan, " 

Orsamus Willard, " 

Rev. Henry W. Bellows, " 
Greely & McElrath, " 

Joshua Brookes, " 

Jacob Harvey, " 

C. M. Olcott, " 

A. A. Low, " 

T. A. Morison, " 

John Halsey, Jr. " 

H. T. Chapman, " 

Isaac H. Frothingham, " 
Charles G. Carleton, " 

Lyman Cobb, " 

J. Atkins, Jr. " 

Joshua Atkins, " 

George C. Thorburn, " 

G. M. Haywood, " 

Abraham Bell, " 

J. Smyth Rogers, " 

George D. H. Gillespie, '' 
J. C. Delano, " 

John Joygcr, " 

Charles Congdon, " 

Rollin Sanford, " 

Jeremiah Brown, " 

W. J. Cornell, " 

Isaac R. Cornell, " 

Charles Richmond, Jr. " 

N. D. Carlisle, " 

F. I. Betts, " 

William T. McCoun, " 

Daniel Stanton, " 

Jonathan Sturgis, " 

Charles M. Leupp, " 



xvin 



NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



Copies. 



Shepherd Knapp, Xew York City, 
Gilbert K. Lassee, " 

Henr)' Woods, " 

F. W. Guiteau, " 

E. D. Gillespie, " 

Wilev Lt Putnam, " 

J. S.Bartlett, " 

Luther Bradish, Ex- 

Lt. Gov. of N. Y 
Wm. H. Mosely, Castleton, Staten Island, 1 
Nehcmiah Denton, Brooklyn, L. Island, 1 
John A. King, Jamaica, Long Island, 1 
E. P. Prentice, Albany, N. Y. 10 

Henry O'Reilly, " 5 

John Townscnd, " 5 

A. Mclntyre, " 5 

J. McDonald Mclntyre, " 5 

Erastus Corning, " 5 

Luther Tucker, " 5 

Hon. Wm. C. Bouck, ) „ g 

Gov. of New York, ) 
Henry L. Webb 



. New Rochelle, N.Y.I 



John N. Wilder, " 

Caleb N. Bement, " 

Robert E. Temple, " 

A. French, Jr. " 

James M. French, " 

James Kidd, " 

Hon. D. D. Barnard, " 

James Hall, " 

H. Pumpelly, " 

Joel Rathbane, " 

A. E. Brown, " 

James Wilson, " 

Prof. E. Emmons, " 

Hon. J. Koons, " 

C. P. Williams, " 

J. P. Bcekman, M. D., Kinderhook, N. Y. 10 

Martin Van Buren, Ex- ) Lindenwald, 

President of U. S. ) Kinderhook, 
Joel B. Nott, Guilderland, N. Y. 
Edward C. Delavan, Ballston Centre, N. Y. 
George Vail, Troy, N. Y. 
Hon." John Savage, Salem, N. Y. 
Ezra Nye, Clinton, N. J. 
Jas. Neilson, ]\L D., New Brunswick, N. J. 
Hon. John B. Avcrigg, Pyramus, N. J. 
J. W. Hayes, Newark, N. J. 
John S. Chambers, Trenton, N. J. 
Samuel R. Guramere, " 

Phil. Dickinson, " 

Richard S. Field, Princeton, N. J. 
S. A. Hamilton, 

Thomas Hancock, Burlington, N. J. 
Ira B. Underbill, " 

Bishop G. W. Doane, " 

Edward B. Grubb, " 

James Thorn, Bordentown, N. J. 
Josiah Tatum, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Jacob Snider, Jr. " 

Peter Hulme, " 

Richard Petci-s, " 

James Mease, M. D. " 

John Hare Powell, " 

AVilliam Morrison, '' 

A. Langdon Elwyn, M. D. •' 
Henry Zantzinger, " 

James Gowen, •' 

Algernon Sidney Roberts, ■' 
Thomas Nelson, " 



30 



Copies 



Aaron Clement, Philadelphia, Pa. 
E. L. Cary, " 

Owen Jones, " 

Charles Magargee, " 
George W. Carpenter, " 
S. Bradford, 

John Farnum, " 

George Blight, " 

Athena;um, " 

Pennsylvania Horti- } ,, 

cultural Society, 5 
Frederic Brown, " 

Charles Cha.uncy, " 

Dr. George Uhler, " 

William G. Malin, " 

Charles Roberts, " 

Dr. Charles Noble, " 
Dr. J. Rhea Barton, " 
Samuel Bettle, " 

Stephen Colwell, " 

Adam Eckfeldt, " 

Charles Yarnall, " 

William E. Garrett, " 
P. A. & S. Small, York, Pa. 
John Evans, " 

Samuel Willis, " 

John Brillinger, " 

Samuel Wagner, " 

Henry Woods, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
John S. Haines, Germantown, Pa. 
David George, Radnor, Pa. 
Samuel Lippencott, Mauch Chunck, Pa. 
Daniel B. Smith, Haverford, Pa. 
Ebenezer J. Dickey, Chester Co., Pa. 
Pennock Passmore, Westtown, Pa. 
Wilson & Heald, Wilmington, Del. 
Benjamin Webb, " 

James AV. Thompson, M. D. " 
Samuel Canbv, " 

Edward Tatnall, " 

John Andrews, " 

James Webb, " 

John Jones, " 

Joseph Carr, < " 

Caleb Churchman, " 

Brvan Jackson, " 

J. "S. H. Boies, 

James T. Bird, " 

Henry Dupont, " 

Edward C. Hewes, " 

Anthony Bidderman, " 

C. J. Diipont, " 

Chauncy P. Holbomb, New Castle, Del. 
John B. Le Fever, " 

John W. Andrews, Stockford, Del. 
Edward T. Bcllah, Brandywine, Del. 
William S. Boulden, Newport, Del. 
Samuel Sands, Baltimore, Md. 

AVilliam C. Shaw, " 

J. Swan, '" 

Gideon B. Smith, M. D. " 

William Child, 

Henry Mankin, " 

William G. Thomas, " 

William C Wilson, " 

Ramsav McIIenrv, " 

Dr. R.Dorsev, 

W. Cary, Fork-Meeting Post Office, Md. 
George Patterson, Sykesville, Md. 
Isaac Webster, Golden Post Office, INId. 



NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



XIX 



Copies. 

B. D. MuUikin, Good Luck, Md. 1 
Botts & Baldwin, Richmond, Va. 10 
Hon. W. C. Rives, Bentivoglio, Va. 2 
Thos. S. Pleasants, Bellona Arsenal, Va. 

Prof. Fred. Hall, M.D., Washington, D. C, 
Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth, " 

D. A. HaU, 

Rev. S. G. Bulfinch, " 

K. L. Ellsworth, " 

J. S. Skinner, " 

Hon. E. Whittlesey, " 

J. L. Page, " 

Darius Lapham, West Liberty, Ohio, 
Eli Nichols, Lloydsville, Ohio, 
Charles Anderson, Dayton, Ohio, 
Cyrus Holt, " 

Robert W. Steele, " 

.J. W. Smith, Maumee, Ohio, 
M. L. Sullivant, Columbus, Ohio, 
J. Sullivant, " 

.Julius Brace, Cincinnati, Ohio, 
H. Probosco, " 

Charles Duffield, " 

Charles Stetson, " 

E. Brij^ham, " 
Ely & Campbell, " 
Cincinnati Horticultural Society, 
J. M. Trimble, Hillsboro,' Ohio, 
Abraham Tappen, Unionville, Ohio, 
William M. Dawes, Alexandria, Ohio, 
Hon. John C. Calhoun ; pej^jieton, S. C 

Sec y of State of U. S. i ' 

Samuel G. Barker, Charleston, S. C. 
Sanford W. Barker, M. D. " 
Charles Alston, " 

Dr. Benjamin Huger, " 

C. Cotes, •' 

J. H. Hammond, Silverton, S. C. 
R. F. W. AUston, Georgetown, S. C. 
M. C. M. Hammond, Hamburg, S. C. 
George Cross, Charlotte, S. C. 
R. F. Davidson, " 

Dr. William R. Holt, Lexington, N. C. 
Hon. T. Spalding, Darien, Ga. 
James H. Couper, " 



Copies. 
Dr. William C. Daniell, Gainesville, Ga. 
Dr. Horatio Bowin, Clinton, Ga. 
Peter L. Clower, " 

Z. A. Philips, Mount Meigs, Ala. 
Charles Barrell, Montgomery, Ala. 
Peter A. Remsen, Mobile, Ala. 
Benjamin Whitfield, Tuscaloosa, Ala. 
Samuel D. J. Moore, " 

Rev. Basil Manly, D. D., ) „ 

Pres. of Univ. of Ala. ) 
Hon. H. W. Collier, " 

Charles M. Foster, " 

William D. Marrast, " 

Hon. J. J. Ormond, " 

James B. Wallace, " 

John McCormick, " 

James M. Crook, Alexandria, Ala. 
F. W. Siperlv, Delavan, W. T. 
J. S. Rockwell, Milwaukee, W. T. 
William H. Whiting, Bloomfield, W. T. 
William Woodbridge, Detroit, Mich. 

^ J?r& cl^'^"^'' \ Constantine, Mich. 

Gen. Calvin Jones, Bolivar, Tenn. 

Benjamin Litton, Nashville, Tenn. 

M. Benjamin, Wilmington, 111. 

Dendy Sharwood, Ottawa, 111. 

J. H. Sherman, Carthage, 111. 

Cyrus Bryant, Princeton, 111. 

Thomas Affleck, Ingleside, Miss. 

Dr. M. W. Philips, Edwards Depot, Miss. 

James Brown, Livingston, Miss. 

Moses Liddell, Woodville, Miss. 

John R. Liddell, Trinity P. O., La. 

Dr. John Calderwood, Monroe, La. 

Branch Tanner, Cheneyville, La. 

James L. Peacock, Bel- ) „„„, nr,^t^^ r , 

grade Plantation, \ ^^" ^^°*°^' ^^• 

George Truit, Kinniconnick, Ky. 

F. Coolwine, Burlington, Iowa, 

Robert W. Williams, Tallahassee, Fa. 

Richard Mendenhall, Richmond, Ind. 

Beadle, M. D., St. Catharine's, U. C. 

. J ■r' ^ Woodhill, Water- 

Adam Ferguson, ^ ^^^^^^ ^ ^ 

W. Young, Halifax, N. S. 
Thomas G. Taylor, Pictou, N. S. 



!^ List of English Subscribers on the next page. 
h* 



XX NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS. 



GREAT BRITAIN. 

Copies. 

Lady Noel Byron, Esher, 6 

Sir Charles Morgan, Tredegar, Wales, .... 6 

John Courage, Esq. Dulwich, 6 

Earl of Hardwicke, Wimpole, 5 

Sir George Cayley, London, 2 

Sir John Easthope, M. P « 2 

E. W. W. Pendarves, M. P Pendarves, Cornwall, ... 2 

Henry Morton, Esq Chester Le Street, . . . 

Countess of Hardwicke, Wimpole, 

Lord Portman, London, 

Lord Ashburton, " 

Lord Hatherton, Teddesley, 

Rev. Dean of Westminster, Dr. Buckland, . London, 

Miss Montgomery, " 

Thomas Spencer, Esq Bransby, Lincolnshire, 

John Giblett, Esq Barnsbury Villas, London, 

R. J. Thompson, Esq Yorkshire, 

Jonas Webb, Esq. Babraham, 

Joseph Joy, Esq. Boston, 

Messrs. Drummond & Co Stirling, Scotland, . . . 

Messrs. Lawson & Co Edinburgh, " ... 



o 



PEEF ACE. 



I HAVE the honor of laying before the public my First Report on European 
Agriculture and Rural Economy. It is to a considerable degree, miscellaneous, 
and not so full of that practical information and detail which I design to give 
hereafter. I trust, however, it will not be found deficient in practical value. 
Many persons may think that I should particularly point out what is to be 
learnt from European agriculture ; but I understand it to be my province to 
give an honest account of what I see, premising that there is nothing to be seen 
from which something may not be learnt, and that it is for others, and not forme, 
to say what they will learn from that which is placed before them. Where we 
find ourselves inferior to others, it may be desirable to ascertain how we may 
reach the excellence to which they have attained ; and where tlie advantage is 
obviously upon our side, it may be a subject of honest congratulation. In cir- 
cumstances, even the most different, a sagacious mind Avill gather instruction 
from contrast as well as from analogy ; and the success of any man, in any trade, 
pursuit, manufacture, or art, is in itself a poAverful stimulus to others to exertion ; 
and, therefore, an instrument of excellence in any and in every other art or 
pursuit. I know no better Avay than to record my impressions of what comes 
under my notice in the field, which I have undertaken to explore, as faithfully as 
I can, and with as much detail as seems expedient ; and to do my best, that every 
one who reads my pages with candor, will not close the book without finding 
something agreeable and instructive, something for improvement in the impor- 
tant art to which my labors will be particularly devoted, and something to make 
him wiser, better, or happier. These latter are the proper ends of knowledge 
and of life; and this honest aim will in itself sanctify and elevate the humblest 
efforts. 

The objects of my inquiry are, of course, various and extensive, and embrace 
every thing connected with the cultivation of the earth, the improvements which 
are now going on in agriculture, and every branch of husbandry and rural and 
domestic economy. 

Among these topics will, of course, be comprehended — 

The Soils, and especially in their relation to different crops. 

Manures and their application. 

The Implements of Husbandry, and various Machines for facilitating ana 
abridging the labors of the Farm. 

The different great operations of Agriculture, such as Ploughing, Sowing, 
Cultivating and Cleaning, Harvesting and preparing the Crops for use or 
market, with the general application of the Produce of a Fann. 



XXll PREFACE. 

Draining and Irrigation. 

Enclosing and Fencing. 

Redeeming Moor and Heath Land. 

Warping and Diking. 

The Crops grown — the Grasses, the Cereal Grains, and Esculent Roots for 

the food of man or beast, and plants cultivated for clothing, building, and 

fuel. 
Live Stock of every description — Cattle, Horses, Sheep, Swine, Poultry ; 

and their different breeds and classes. 
The breeding, rearing, and fattening of Live Stock. 
The Dairy. 
The cultivation of Silk, Flax, Hemp, Hops, Madder, Woad, Mustard, Chic- 

cory, Olives, Grapes, Figs ; the production of Wool and Honey ; of Wine, 

Oil, and Sugar; and various other crops and products which may come 

under my notice, and the production and growth of which may be possible 

and useful in any part of the United States. 
Markets and Fairs ; Farming Accounts. 
Agricultural Labor ; wages, condition, and service. 
The Management of paiticular Fanns — arable, dairy, stock, and wool 

farms. 
Experimental Farms. 
Veterinary Establishments. 
Agricultural Societies, IMuseums, and Shows. 
Agricultural Schools, Education, and Literature. 
The Condition of the Rural Population. 
Rural Life — Morals, Manners, and Customs. 

These are among the topics which will claim my attention, and upon which, 
in the course of my tour, I hope to collect and to communicate much useful in- 
formation. The field, I am aware, is a wide one, and no unaided individual 
could, under any circumstances, give a full and entire view of these various 
subjects, so as to satisfy every inquiry ; but I will do what I can to glean that 
which is most valuable, and to direct to more full sources of information the 
inquiries of tliose to whom further information may be desirable. 

I do not know in what place, rather than iiere, I can better acknowledge the 
kindness and hospitality which I have received from gentlemen with whom it 
has been my happiness to become acquainted ; add to this the utmost readiness 
and courtesy in rendering every assistance in their power to my inquiries. The 
kindness is sensibly appreciated ; and these acknowledgments are due to many 
noblemen of tlie highest rank in the empire ; and to many gentlemen of more 
humble condition, who, if they have not the nobility of rank, have even a higher 
patent — one without which the most brilliant insignia of external distinction 
become dim — the nobility of intelligence, wisdom, and most active and exten- 
sive usefulness. I should bo glad here, if it were proper, to illuminate ray page 
with the names of many distinguished individuals, of whose courtesy and kind- 
ness the recollection will not fail, while any record remains legible on the 
tablet of my heart; but this would be contrary to a rule which, with me, has 
always been absolute in cases of this nature, lest I should be thought even to 
approach a violation of the confidence of social life. One may wound almost as 
much by public praise as by censure that delicacy of sentiment which, satisfied 
with doing good, shrinks from notoriety and ostentation. Nor would I in any 



PREFACE, XXlll 

way impair or hinder that frankness of communication and manners which con- 
stitutes the charm of social intercourse. This would be sure to be checked if 
we knew that a reporter for the public were constantly present ; and, if the hum- 
ble expression be allowed, it would hide itself in its burrow, as sure as it per- 
ceived that one of the feline or the canine race was always at the mouth of its 
hole waiting its coming out. 

My agricultural tour, therefore, must not be expected to have much of per- 
sonal and private narrative; though I am aware, that, from this very circum- 
stance, it may lack much of that interest which, with a large class of readers, it 
might otherwise possess. However strong, on these accounts, the temptation, I 
shall certainly not report many interesting conversations to which I have been a 
party ; nor describe the eminent or the more humble individuals to whom I have 
had the honor of an introduction ; nor, after the example of some tourists, tell of 
the private visits which I have made, and the charming families whose honored 
guest I have been ; nor speak of the " accomplished men, and the delightful 
women, and the beautiful daughters, and the promising sons," in the houses 
where, to use the only term by which true Englisli hospitality may be expressed, 
I have been domiciliated, and to do only justice to many of whom, and to a con- 
dition of society in the highest degree polished and improved, would not be for 
me an easy task, I say notliing of the impropriety of stealing for the public the 
likeness of a friend, without his consent, and witlaout allowing him to choose his 
position, his dress, or his painter; for, as an agriculturist, this is not the species of 
live stock which I came to examine, and in which those for whose benefit I travel 
would be most interested. Yet, while I shall scrupulously avoid all person- 
alities whatever of this description, I shall feel at perfect liberty to give, as far 
as I am able, a true picture of rural life in England, and of the condition and 
habits of the rural population ; and if, in doing this, I shall, in any ca e, be 
thought to go beyond the strict line of what may be called the practical and the 
useful in an agricultural tour, with the candid I shall find an apology in my aesire 
to alleviate the dulness of dry details, by occasional topics more light and imagi- 
native. It is not unreasonable for me to wish to attract to my pages, I hi pe for 
their benefit, a class of readers who would be certain to be repelled from e. mere 
skeleton, however accurately and beautifully all the bones were put together, and 
all the joints and articulations displayed ; but who would be delighted to con- 
template the same subject covered with flesji, instinct with life, radiant with 
health, and clothed in the habiliments of elegance and fashion. Every one 
knows the variety of tastes every where existing. He who caters for the public 
will be, of course, anxious that each guest at the table should find something 
which he likes. Though, perhaps, a large portion of mankind might be best 
satisfied with plain boiled and roast, and content to eat their dinner out of 
pewter plates, and from a plain and coarse oaken table without a cloth, such as 
I have seen at Haddon Hall, nearly two centuries old ; there are not a few who 
would prefer the refinements of modern life, a porcelain dish to a wooden tren- 
cher, a silver fork to the natural use of the ten digits, the French entrees to the 
more substantial covers ; and who, little as it may contribute to tlie actual sup- 
port of life, find as high a pleasure in the fittings-out of the banquet, its arrange- 
ments, neatness, order, beauty, and in the splendid pyramid of flowers which 
often crowns its centre, as in any mere gratification of the appetite. Under any 
circumstances it would be idle in me to presume to spread an elegant and 
splendid table for my guests ; but while I shall be anxious to furnish that which 
is substantial and nutritious, I shall be equally desirous that at least the dessert 



XXIV PREFACE. 

shall be made up of the best fruits which I can gather. Though I am not able 
to present them in vases of gold and silver, or of diamond glass, or Sevrds or 
porcelain china ; yet if the peaches and the strawberries should be seen blushing 
under a few of the leaves of tlieir own foliage, or if a simple bouquet of the 
flowers of the sweetbrier and violet, or a handful of the half-unfolded buds of the 
moss-rose, the queen of flowers, should be sought to relieve the monotony of the 
table, I hope that my taste will not be condemned, but will be regarded only as 
in conformity to the rule sanctioned by a high antiquity, that of mingling " the 
agreeable with the useful." 

There are other grounds upon which I claim the indulgence of my readers. 
We have often heard of the vexation of an artist, who is compelled to paint 
a picture to order ; and, willing or unwilling, well or ill, under the most brilliant 
spell of poetical excitement, or in an hour of the most sleepy or prosy dulness, 
he must work at it, and have it completed, and varnished, and framed, and sent 
home to be criticized, by a certain time. To a degree, similar objections lie to 
all forced intellectual labor ; and in many such cases, a powerfully excited 
desire to do well, and not to disappoint the wishes and expectations of kind 
friends, presents, in itself, no small hinderance to success, and, strange as it may 
seem, is sometimes the cause of failure. It must be obvious to any one what 
disadvantages I labor under in being obliged to give my reports before I have 
completed my tour. In this case, I yield of necessity to an impatience of curi- 
osity on the part of my friends, which I would neither condemn nor blame, but 
which certainly presents a strong claim upon their candor. 

1 am painfully aware of the greatness of the undertaking, and the sacrifices 
which, at my time of life, it demands of me, and the difficulties in the case of 
meeting even my own wishes. But the object being exclusively a public object, 
and one in respect to the utility of which, however imperfectly accomplished, 
there can be no dissent, I look confidently for the aid and encouragement, so 
essential to my success, of the intelligent, disinterested, and public-spirited, 
among the friends of agricultural improvement. Such aid in any form will be 
gratefully appreciated. 

In whatever light I regard the subject of the unprovement of agriculture, my 
sense of its importance is continually strengthened. In its social, political, and 
moral bearings — in its connection with the subsistence of mankind, with their 
general comfort, and with the progress of civilization — no subject, purely sec- 
ular, more demands the attention of the political economist, the statesman, and 
the philanthropist. If the familiar experience of half a century in all the labors 
and details of practical husbandry, a considerable acquaintaince with the agri- 
culture of the United States, and an enthusiastic attachment to rural life and 
rural pursuits, give me any power to be useful in the advancement of this great 
cause, that power shall be exerted. I do not know to what object the short 
remainder of my life can be more rationally devoted. 

HENRY COLMAN. 

2 Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, 

London, 1844. 



PREFACE 



TO THE SECOND EDITION, 



I^' presenting a second edition of European Agriculture to tlie public, I take 
the opportunity to acknowledge gratefully the patronage of my subscribers, and 
the favorable appreciation of my labors by a liberal and enlightened community. 

I hope that tlie work will do some good by the information which it commu- 
nicates ; and I am happy in the assurance that it has already done, and will con- 
tinue to do, much good in calling the attention of the public to this great and 
important subject, this most essential interest of the community. Every, even 
the most humble, effort to enlighten the public mind on this subject, to interest, 
if I may so say, their affections in it, and to elevate and ennoble it in the public 
estimation, is so far a contribution to the oest interests of society. 

At the present time the world seems mad with the thirst for gold. The unex- 
pected discovery of a large deposit of this precious metal in California seems at 
once to have canied this passion up to the boiling point, and brilliant dreams of 
wealth acquired without toil, and gold to be gathered in handfuls at pleasure, 
seem to have startled many sober minds, and to have moved them from their 
propriety, and to be drawing them away from the calm pursuits of honest indus- 
try and tlie certain gains of habitual diligence and wholesome economy, into a 
race to be suddenly rich, in which the competition will be crowded, the dangers 
to health and life many and great, and, under the best circumstances, the results 
to possession, enjoyment, and morals altogether uncertain. I firmly believe that, 
with no more expense than it now demands to reach this golden paradise, with 
no more toil in tilling the earth, with entire security and peace of mind, and 
witli no danger to health or morals, many a young man might establish himself 
far nearer home in our beneficent country, on a small farm ; and, in the wholesome 



XXVI PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

pursuits of rural industry, would, in the end, become a far richer and happier 
man than nine out of ten of tliose who, under a burning sun, in a climate full 
of danger to life, among a population of the most heterogeneous character, and 
all burning with unmixed avarice, and entirely out of the protection of law, with 
the hardest toil, and amidst the most severe privations, seek for riches and happi- 
ness in the sands of San Francisco. 

JNIy work will be found in this edition considerably enlarged, and all pains 
have been taken to insure accuracy. There is some miscellaneous matter, but 
not wholly irrelevant to the subject ; and as it has been my constant aim to make 
it so, the work will, I trust, be found of an eminently practical character ; and as 
full and as exact details are given in regard to every agricultural operation or 
subject as the nature of the case seemed to demand. 

In regard to the plates of animals some distrust has been expressed as to their 
accuracy. This, in a measure, grows out of an incredulity as to the extraordi- 
nary improvements which the British farmers have made in this matter. I have 
only to say that the drawings have been made from life by some of the best 
artists which the country affords ; that every pains has been taken to render 
them coiTect likenesses ; that I have seen several of the animals of which cuts are 
given, and, as far as my judgment goes, know them to be exact ; and in respect 
to those cases in which T have not seen the originals, having seen many animals 
of the same breeds and families, have not a doubt of their accuracy. 

Boston, Mass. Feb. 1849. 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



PIUST REPORT. 



I.— GENERAL FACTS AND CONSIDERATIONS. 

Most of my friends are aware of the circumstances which have 
induced me to undertake an agricultural tour in Europe. The 
enterprise was suggested among some friends, at the show of the 
New York State Agricultural Society, in Albany, in September, 
1842 ; and. upon proposals being issued for its accomplishment, 
the project met with so much favor as to warrant my sailing for 
England, in April, 1843. 

Ploughing the sea is somewhat different from ploughing the 
land ; but under an experienced pilot, and with favorable winds, 
we made a broad, a deep, and a comparatively straight furrow, 
throwing off continually floods of jewels from the mould-board ; 
and in the short space of seventeen days, completed the brilliant 
line, and unyoked the team in the harbor of Liv^erpool. Here, 
for the first time, I set foot in England, the green isle in the 
ocean, the sight of which had been so long the object of my 
desire ; the brilliant centre of so many youthful imaginations, 
the home of my fathers, and the advance-guard — if so it may 
be proper to speak — among the nations of the civilized world ia 
the march of human improvement, in learning and civilization, 
m science and the useful arts, and in all the elements of social 
greatness and prosperity. 

It would be impossible to describe my emotions on that occa- 
sion. If small things may be compared to great, then, if it were 
1 



2 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

not — as with the bold and adventurous Genoese — the discovery 
of a new and unknown country, yet it was to me an unexplored 
country; and it was, in truth, almost the first time I had realized 
the greatness of the enterprise upon which I had embarked. 

Some persons may smile at the application of such language 
to a mere agricultural tour. Things are great or small by com- 
parison ; and that work may be considered great to any one, 
which, in its proper performance, demands the exertion of all the 
talents which he may possess. I cannot but look upon an agri- 
cultural tour in Europe, in the present condition of the art and 
science, — for in both lights it has now come to be viewed, — as 
most important ; combining a variety of inquiries and observa- 
tions which would severely tax the highest powers that might 
be applied to this object. It is for me to assume only the hum- 
ble office of a pioneer in this great work ; and if I can be so 
happy as to render some essential service to my country, in facil- 
itating the labors of those who sliall come after me, in effecting 
a small clearing that others may more easily bring the field into 
a state of complete and productive cultivation, I shall be consoled 
under all the imperfections of my attempt with the conviction 
that I have not labored in vain. 

I cannot help feeling that there is a high responsibleness 
attached to my undertaking — a responsibleness not merely to 
the kindness of friends, on both sides of the water, who with an 
extraordinary liberality and good will have favored the enter- 
prise, but to the great cause itself of agricultural improvement ; 
that the information collected and given might be drawn from 
authentic sources, selected and combined with judgment, and 
presented in a condensed, compact, and practical form. 

A person who has had no experience in such a matter, who is 
not accustomed to such investigations, can form no just idea of the 
difficulties of accomplishing in this case what one would desire 
to do ; and of the impediments, and, I regret to add, in many 
cases the vexations and disappointments, which, in its prosecu- 
tion, he will be compelled to meet with. Before I left home, a 
friend — in many respects highly intelligent, and eminent for his 
sound judgment, and, withal, a liberal and devoted friend of an 
improved agriculture — said to me, "that there was nothing to 
be learned in England ; that he himself had travelled much in 
England, by post, and had occasionally alighted and talked wiUi 



GENERAL FACTS AND CONSIDEKATIONS. 3 

laborers, whom he saw in the fields by the road-side, but he had 
learned uotliing from them." And another friend, whose emi- 
nent position in the community should have saved him from an 
immature judgment, expressed an opinion that " the climate of 
England was so different from the United States, and the cost 
of labor in England was so much less than in America, that the 
agricultural practice and experience of Great Britain could have 
no application to the United States." Now, entertaining as I do 
the high respect for these two gentlemen to Vviiich their intelli- 
gence and position in society entitle them, I have come, not 
without some reluctance, to an entirely opposite conclusion — a 
conclusion which my own observation, in the course of my 
progress, lias daily more and more confirmed. 

There is a great deal to be learned in England, which can 
scarcely be said to be known in the United States. There is a 
great deal of agricultural practice in England, which may with 
advantage be transplanted to America ; and although, as is most 
obvious, every agricultural operation must be modified by the 
climate of a country and various local circumstances, yet, in 
respect to many facts of a practical nature, the knowledge that 
under any circumstances a thing is practicable is often of great 
importance, as it excites to inquiries and experiments which may 
evolve many other valuable facts ; and inquiries and experiments 
will often suggest modes of operation by which even the diffi- 
culties of climate and situation may be counteracted or over- 
come. Plants and animals are often naturalized to localities 
very different and distant from their native homes. If the com- 
mon history of the plant be true, one of the most valuable and 
nutritious of esculent vegetables, the potato, is an example of a 
removal from a warm to a temperate, and even a cold climate : 
and of a conversion from a root very inferior in size and quality, 
to a vegetable most productive in its yield, universally relished, 
in the highest degree farinaceous and nutritious, and, under the 
best cultivation, perhaps yielding per acre as much food for man 
or beast as any other plant which could occupy the ground. 
Then, again, to suppose that a knowledge of the agriculture of 
a country is to be acquired by a transit through it on the box- 
seat of a coach, or in a railroad carriage, or by a casual conver- 
sation with laborers by the road-side, who, especially in England, 
.where labor is so much subdivided that the knowledge of a man 



4 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ia that condition of life seldom extends beyond the particular 
service to which he has been trained, is a jadgment of which, 
upon farther consideration, an enlarged mind would not be tena- 
cious. In respect to any other matter of importance, it would 
not be the most likely way of obtaining full and authentic infor- 
mation. Why should it be deemed so in respect to agriculture ? 
This art, in its improved condition, combines so many arts and 
such various subjects of inquiry and observation, that a close 
scrutiny and long-continued inquiry are as indispensable to a 
thorough knowledge of it as they are in respect to any of the 
branches of commerce or manufactures. 

After travelling many hundreds of miles over this rich and 
highly-cultivated country, and seeing many of the landlords, and 
tenants, and laborers, in their own domiciles and homesteads, in 
their stables and fields, and enjoying the most free communica- 
tions, I feel that I have, as it were, only begun to see what is to 
be seen, and to learn what is to be known, and that every step 
of my progress is developing new and valuable objects of inquiry 
and remark. 



II. — PARTICULAR OBJECTS OF INQUIRY. 

What should an agricultural tour embrace ? To this the 
proper answer is, Every thing connected with the cultivation 
of the earth, the production of food for man and beast, and the 
condition of those to whom agriculture is a business and profes- 
sion. In my preface I have enumerated generally the objects of 
inquiry. The various operations of husbandry, the implements 
by which these operations are carried on and facilitated, the 
plants cultivated, and the live stock produced and maintained, 
constitute the principal subjects to be observed and treated ; but 
the subdivisions into which these great topics spread themselves 
are very numerous, and it is as important to consider them in detail 
as in the gross. It may be expected by some persons that I 
should merely point out in what respects foreign differs from 
American agriculture ; or, otherwise, that I should only suggest 
for adoption in the United States such methods of culture as, in 



PARTICULAR OBJECTS OF INQUIRY. 5 

my opinion, would constitute an improvement upon American 
agriculture. Tliis would be assuming too great a responsibility, 
and would display a confidence in my own judgment with which 
I would not willingly be chargeable. I design to give, as well 
as I am able, a full account of subjects which come under my 
immediate observation. I shall not hesitate to pronounce my 
opinion whenever I deem it proper so to do, because intelligent 
minds for whom I write will be no further influenced by it than 
as it appears reasonable ; but I shall, in all cases, endeavor so 
fully to state any matter in discussion, that they will have the 
materials before them for making up their own judgment, and 
with that I shall not any further willingly interfere. Even agri- 
culture, like every other subject not susceptible of mathematical 
demonstration, is not without its disputed and disputable points, 
into which, of course, something of the heat of passion may at 
times infuse itself. Political agriculture is full of such topics, 
and will be cautiously avoided by me so far as in any way it 
presents itself as matter of party contention. The different 
breeds of live stock, neat cattle, and sheep, have each their parti- 
sans ; often influenced solely by their own honest preferences 
and convictions, founded — as they at least persuade themselves 
— upon experience and observation ; and in some cases, it will 
not be denied, by private interests — a stimulus which is too sel- 
dom absent from most of the disputes and contentions in life. 
Now, if a man should pronounce a preference over all others 
for the short-horns, he must expect to be tossed by the long- 
horns ; if he sides with the Herefords, the Durhams will shake 
their heads at him ; and if he advocates, above all others, the 
claims of the polled Scotch, the Angus, or the Fife cattle, 
the West Highlanders will be down upon him with a ven- 
geance. So it is with the South Downs and the Leicesters. — 
meek, quiet, placable animals themselves, — who may be seen 
feeding peaceably together out of the same manger, and lying 
down without passion in the same pen ; but not so their owners 
and breeders. A spirit of rivalry pervades every department of 
life. Under due restraints and discipline, it is productive of the 
most useful results ; but it too often blinds the judgment, and 
becomes fierce and vindictive. We are not satisfied with the 
imdoubted good qualities of what belongs to ourselves ; but we 

resolve upon exposing the defects and faults, whether real or 
l * 



b EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

imaginary, of what belongs to our neighbors. It is not enough 
that our own children are handsome, good-tempered, clever, and 
accomplished ; but we insist upon it that those of our neighbors 
are ugly, morose, and ill-endowed. Perhaps agriculture presents 
a more limited field for any ill-natured emulation than almost 
any other department of life. Here men cannot conceal their 
discoveries and improvements. Here there cannot be long any 
monopoly of advantages. Here men perceive how rapidly and 
widely improvements and discoveries extend themselves. In the 
present condition of the world, for a man to pretend to keep any 
distinguished agricultural improvement to himself would be 
very much like his holding up his umbrella before the sun, so 
that it might not shine upon other people. All he can be sure of, 
in this case, is to keep himself in the dark. A liberal and intelli- 
gent mind perceives at once, that the light which his knowledge 
or improvements shed upon others, is always reflected back upon 
himself. 



III. — SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 

It must be admitted, however, that although a good deal of 
selfishness and bigotry might remain, — for, alas! how can it be 
otherwise as long as human nature is human ? — there is a spirit 
of liberal inquiry abroad in respect to agriculture, blazing in llie 
valleys, and beaming from the hill tops, and every where diffus- 
ing an invigorating, a stirring, and a healthful radiance. One of 
the wisest of our race, who applied his heart, as he says, to un- 
derstand wisdom, has told us that there is nothing new under 
the sun ; what is, has been ; and the human mind is not likely 
to spring suddenly a mine of truth, which has never before been 
touched ; nor may it expect at once to accomplish the solution 
of recondite problems, which have baffled the most penetrating 
and puzzled the most sagacious minds. It would be the gross- 
est injustice to many men of the brightest powers, of profound 
investigation, and of most liberal and disinterested views, — who, 
though they have gone out, have left a brilliant track behind 
them, — to say that agricultural science has never before been 



SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 7 

prosecuted with zeal, intelligence, and in the spirit of true 
philosophy. 

I am not a believer in the immediate approach of an intellec- 
tual millennium ; nor can I persuade myself that philosophy has 
just been born into the world, and that all preceding ages were 
ages of comparative barbarism. It is true that the natural 
sciences are now prosecuted with singular advantages and suc- 
cess ; that, in a particular manner, chemistry has, in a measure, 
been created within the last half century ; and tliat it promises 
to render the most essential aid to agriculture. Excepting, how- 
ever, the stimulus which it has every where given to inquiry 
and observation, and the exact experiments which it is prompt- 
ing farmers — even in the humblest departments of agriculture — 
to make, it cannot as yet point to very many positive practical 
triumphs. Sanguine as I am, in common v/ith others, in its ap- 
pHcation to agriculture, ultimately and perhaps speedily yielding 
the most beneficial fruits, it has not yet even approached a solu- 
tion of many of the profound secrets of nature. Whether this 
triumpli is ever to be achieved by human sagacity ; whether, 
with our present faculties, we are capable of entering into these 
sacred mysteries, and of lifting up even a corner of the veil 
which Heaven has drawn over them, it would be idle to conjec- 
ture ; but they are, as yet, a sealed book to us. In the spirit of 
the Book of books, " Let us wait at Wisdom's gates, let us watch 
at the posts of her doors;" let us knock, humbly hoping that 
they may be opened to us. Those Avho have gone before us 
have done the same, and were favored with many largesses, 
which they have bequeathed to their children. Let us do them 
justice by gratefully acknowledging our debt to them ; and not 
wrap ourselves up, as we are very liable to do, in the vain con- 
ceit that they knew nothing, and tbat we know every thing. 

We talk about nniting science with agriculture, as if this were 
the first time of asking the banns, when we may be sure the 
marriage was consummated years and years ago. A science, 
technically speaking, is a particular branch of human knowledge, 
which has been systematized and drawn up in regular form ; its 
particular principles and rules defined, its department circum- 
scribed, and its peculiar vocabulary arbitrarily established. In 
this respect, chemistry, botany, and mechanics are sciences ; but 
science, in an enlarged sense, is the observation of nature — the 
accumulation and comparison of facts, and the deduction of 



8 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

inferences from them, either for the acquisition of more knowl- 
edge, or for practical application and use. I venture to assert 
that, without any knowledge of the particular and technical 
terms of art, whose utility I am not disposed in the smallest 
degree to deny, wherever the mind is at work there is science ; 
and many men, who hardly know the letters of a book, are yet 
profound observers of nature, and may be denominated scientific 
agriculturists; because they are full of knowledge, which they 
are constantly applying to practice. Now, without any dispar- 
agement of former times, I think it must be admitted that the 
universal mind of the agricultural world was never so powerfully 
stirred as it is at this present time. We must do what we can 
to keep it awake, and to direct the application of its powers. 
"Practice with science," is the terse and comprehensive motto 
of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. Philosophy now 
comes down from her high places, and takes Labor by the hand, 
that they may walk together among the works of God, and, with 
an enlightened and commendable curiosity, " search into the 
causes of things." This is the highest office of the human 
understanding. 

Nature proceeds by fixed laws. She is not a confused jumble 
of things ; to-day one thing, and to-morrow another. All the 
relations of the different parts of nature are mutual and exact, 
and every thing moves on in a beautiful agreement with every 
other thing. The ancients were accustomed to speak of the 
music of the spheres ; this refers to the harmony which prevails 
throughout the universe, so that no discordant note is ever 
sounded. There is a reason for every thing ; there is a rule by 
which every thing is directed and controlled. It is not enough 
for us to say, " This is a mystery ; it is in vain for us to inquire ; " 
or, " Here is an arbitrary and miraculous power in nature which 
we can never understand." There may be many things beyond 
our comprehension ; there is nothing which should be beyond 
our inquiry. There is a wonderful power at work always in 
vegetation. The development and progress of vegetable life, 
the relations of the soil to the plant produced, the effects of light 
and air, and dew and rain, and frost and electricity, the nature 
of manures, their uses and their results, may all be considered as 
mysteries as yet, to a great degree, unresolved ; but from what 
we see in other parts of Nature, which have come under our 
observation, and where some portion of her laws has been fully 



SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 9 

revealed, an intelligent mind can have no doubt that all these 
things rest upon certain determinate principles, and are governed 
by laws as fixed as any which prevail in other parts of the system 
of nature. Whoever examines the minutest crystal, will find 
that in the same classes the laws -of aggregation are the same ; 
whoever examines any species of plants, perceives an exact sim- 
ilarity of formation and habit pervading whole classes and tribes. 
The established principles of gravitation and attraction, and 
above all that most wonderful discovery of chemical equivalents, 
all demonstrate the existence, throughout nature, of fixed laws 
and determinate forces, whose operation is univ^ersal and invaria- 
ble. There is every reason to believe that the laws of vegetable 
and animal life, and growth and nourishment and decay, are 
equally well established, and equally universal, and equally inva- 
riable. The ascertaining and discovery of any one of these laws 
is positive knowledge — is, properly speaking, science; and any 
mind, acute and observing, may, in the daily routine of humble 
life, become familiar with many of these great laws ; and read, 
at first-hand, on the illuminated pages of external nature, the 
most useful and the most sublime truths, though it has never 
been taught to read by the alphabet of science, nor been allowed 
admission into the schools of philosophy. 

It is said of one of the greatest of human intellects, a mind 
whose sublime discoveries constitute a divine revelation, second 
only to the written word, that he was led to the discovery of the 
great principle which binds worlds and systems in one harmoni- 
ous bond, by the falling of an apple. The cultivator of the 
earth has before him not merely the fall but the growth of the 
apple, which, from the germination of the seed to the maturity 
of the tree, from the opening of the blossom to the ripening of 
the fruit, is full of lessons of wisdom ; and, in every stage of its 
progress, reveals the power and the skill and tlie beneficence of 
that divine agent, who fills all in all. 

England presents at this time a more brilliant example, than 
any age or country has before witnessed, of the application, I will 
not say of science, for that would not comprehend the idea which 
I wish to express, but the application of mind to agriculture. 
The practice of agriculture, and the philosophy of agriculture, 
are matters of universal interest. Men of all grades and condi- 
tions are laboring in this great cause, and are asking for the how, 
and the loluj, and the xchcrefore. The brighter intellects are 



10 EUROPEAN AGPaCULTURE, 

directing their talents to agricultural inquiries ; and the humblest 
in their humble, but not inefficient way, are seconding their 
efforts. So many miuds concentrating their rays upon the same 
point, they must be sure to illuminate it with an extraordinary 
brilliancy. 

Agriculture is now getting to be recognized as the command- 
ing interest of the state : so it must ever be as lying at the 
foundation of all others. Few persons are apprized of their obli- 
gations to agriculture ; and it is difficult to estimate the extent 
of these obligations. Every man's daily bread, his meat, his 
clothing, his shelter, his luxuries, all come from tlie earth. The 
foundation, or, as the French would say, the materiel of all com- 
merce and manufactures, is agricultiu'e ; and its moral influences 
are innumerable and most powerful. It will be found likewise, 
upon an observation of the different conditions of different 
nations or communities, that a laborious agriculture is, in a high 
degree, a conservator of good morals ; and that those countries 
are, upon the whole, and on this account, most blessed, not 
where the fruits of the earth are yielded spontaneously without 
care and without toil, but where its products come only as the 
reward of industry, and the powers of the mind, as well as the 
labor of the hand, are severely taxed in a struggle for the means 
of subsistence and comfort. Every one recognizes labor as the 
source of wealth. How few things have any value, which have 
not been either produced or modified by labor ! and in what 
department is labor so productive, so essential, and so important 
as in that of agriculture ? 



IV. — ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 

I will not dwell longer upon these considerations, with which 
every intelligent mind must be impressed ; and which must, 
more or less, constantly present themselves to our notice in that 
field of observation which we have entered. I shall proceed to 
present some general views of the agriculture of England, and 
shall descend, in the course of my reports, to such details as may 
be deemed useful and practical. 

The condition of practical agriculture in Great Britain, as far 



ENGLISH AGRICULTURE.- ] 1 

as I have had opportunity of observing it, must be pronounced 
highly improved. Many parts of tlie country present an order, 
exactness, and neatness of cultivation greatly to be admired; but 
a sky is seldom without clouds, and there are parts of England 
where the appearance is any thing but landable, and where there 
are few and very equivocal evidences of skill, industry, or thrift. 
We are often told m America, that England is only a large gar- 
den, in which aft, and skill, and labor, have smoothed all the 
rough places, filled up the hollow places, and brought every thing 
into a beautiful and systematic harmony, and into the highest 
degree of productiveness. This is not wholly true ; indeed, 
though there are many farms to be altogether admired for the 
degree of perfection to which their cultivation has been carried, 
yet there are not a few places where the indications of neglect, 
and indolence, and unskilfulness are but too apparent ; and where, 
in an obvious contest for victory between the cultivated plant 
and the weeds, the latter triumph from their superiority both in 
force and mmibers. I shall, however, most cheerfully admit 
that English farming, taken as a whole, is characterized by a 
neatness, exactness, thoroughness seldom seen in my own coun- 
try. An American, landing in Liverpool, is at once struck with 
the amount of labor every where expended ; tlie docks, and the 
public buildings, and the lofty and magnificent warehouses aston- 
ish him by the substantial and permanent character of their 
structure. The railways, likewise, with their deep excavations, 
their bridges of solid masonry, their splendid viaducts, tlieir 
immense tunnels, extending in some cases more than two miles 
in length, and their depots and station-houses, covering acres of 
ground, with their iron pillars and their roofs, also of iron, exhib- 
iting a sort of tracery or net-work of the strongest as well as 
most beautiful description, indicate a most profuse expenditure 
of labor, and are evidently made to endure. He is still more 
overpowered with amazement when, coming to London, he 
passes up or down the River Thames, and contemplates the sev- 
eral great bridges, among the most splendid objects which are to 
be seen in England, two of which are of iron and three of stone, 
spanning this great thoroughfare of commerce with their beauti- 
ful arches, and made as if, as far as human presumjjtion can go, 
they would bid defiance to the decay and ravages of time. If 
to this, he adds (as, indeed, how can he help doing it ?) a visit 
to the Thames Tunnel, — a secure; a dry, a brilliant, and even a 



12 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

gay passage under the bed of the stream, where the tides of the 
ocean daily roll their waves, and the mighty barks of commerce 
and war float in all their majesty and pride over his head, exhib- 
iting the perfection of engineering, and a strength of construction 
and finish, which leaves not adoubtof its security and endurance, 
— he perceives an expense of labor which disdains all the lim- 
ited calculations of a young and comparatively poor country. 
He remarks a thoroughness of workmanship which is most 
admirable, and which indicates a boldness and bravery of enter- 
prise, taking into its calculations not merely years but centuries 
to come. We have, in America, a common saying in respect to 
many things which we undertake, that " this will do for the 
present," which does not seem to me to be known in England ; 
and we have a variety of cheap, insubstantial, slight-o'-hand 
ways of doing many things, sometimes vulgarly denominated 
"make-shifts to do," which we ascribe to what we call Yankee 
cleverness, of which certainly no signs are to be seen here. 
Agricultural operations and improvements are here in general 
conducted and finished in the most thorough and substantial 
manner. 

The walls enclosing many of the noblemen's parks in England, 
which comprehend hundreds, and, in some cases, thousands of 
acres, are brick walls, of ten and twelve feet in height, running 
for miles and miles. The walls round many of the farms in 
Scotland, called there "dikes," made of the stone of the coun- 
try, and laid in lime, and capped with flat stones resting vertically 
upon their edges, are finished pieces of masonry. The improve- 
ments at the Duke of Portland's, at Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, 
in his arrangements for draining and irrigating, at his pleasure, 
from three to five hundred acres of land, — without doubt one of 
the most skilful and magnificent agricultural improvements ever 
made, — are executed in the most finished and permanent manner; 
the embankments, the channels, the sluices, the dams, the gates, 
being constructed, in all cases where it would be most useful and 
proper, of stone or iron. These are only samples of the style in 
which things are done here. The important operations of em- 
banking and of draining, especially under the new system of 
draining and subsoiling, are executed most thoroughly. The 
farm houses and farm buildings are of brick or stone, and all 
calculated to endure. 

I cannot recommend, without considerable qualifications, these 



ENGLISH CAPITAL. 13 

expensive ways of doing tilings to my own countrymen. We 
have not tlie means — the capital for accomplishing them ; but 
we might gather from them a usefal lesson ; for, in general, we 
err by an opposite extreme. We build too slightly — we do not 
execute our improvements thoroughly — we have little capital to 
expend, without which, of course, no substantial improvements 
can be effected ; and labor, with us, is with more difficulty ob- 
tained, with far more difficulty managed, and requires to be much 
more highly paid than here. I hope I shall be pardoned for 
adding, as my deliberate conviction, that we are too shy of in- 
vesting money in improvements of this nature, however secure, 
because they do not yield so large a percentage as many other 
investments somewhat more questionable in a moral view, and 
vastly more so in respect to the security which they offer. 

There are circumstances in the condition of things here, which 
certainly warrant a much more liberal expenditure in improve- 
ments than would be eligible with us. Here exist the right of 
primogeniture and the law of entail, so that an estate remains in 
the same family for centiu'ies; and a man is comparatively sure 
that the improvements which he makes will be enjoyed by his 
children's children. Things are entirely different with us — 
houses in our cities are continually changing hands, and are 
scarcely occupied by one life ; and in the country, even in staid 
New England, few estates are in the hands of the third or fourth 
generation in the direct line of descent. I shall not at all dis- 
cuss the comparative advantages, expediency, or propriety of one 
or the other system. I leave those inferences to others — my 
business is with the fact as it is; and, like short leases, it has an 
obvious tendency to hinder or discourage improvements of a 
substantial and permanent character, involving a large expense. 



v.— ENGLISH CAPITAL. 

Another marked distinction, already alluded to, between the 

condition of the proprietors of the soil here and with us, is in 

the amount of capital existing here. It is absolutely enormous, 

and almost distances the system of enumeration whick we are 

2 



14 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

taught at our common schools. Let me mention some facts 
which have been stated to me on credible authority ; and let me 
premise that a pound sterling is about equal to five dollars United 
States currency. Under a law of the present government, here, 
levying a tax upon every man's income when it exceeds one 
hundred and fifty pounds sterling a year, persons liable to taxa- 
tion are required to make a just return of their income under a 
heavy penalty. A confectioner, in London, returned, as his 
annual income, the sum of thirty thousand pounds sterling, or 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or six times as much as 
the salary of the President of the United States ; which showed, 
at least, Ikuv skilful he was in compounding some of the sweets 
of life. A nobleman, it is said, has contracted with a master 
builder to erect for him, in London, four thousand — not forty — 
not four hundred — but four thousand honses of a good size for 
occupation. In some of the best parts of London, acres of land, 
vast squares, are occupied with large and elegant dwelling- 
houses, paying heavy rents, in long rows, blocks, and crescents, 
and all belonging to some single individual. One nobleman. 
whose magnificent estate was left to him by his father, encum- 
bered with a debt of some hundred tliousand pounds, by limit- 
ing, as it is termed here, his own annual expenditure to thirty 
thousand pounds, has well nigh extinguished this debt, and, in 
all human probability, will soon have his patrimonial estate free 
of encumbrance. The incomes of some of the rich men in 
the country, amount to twenty, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred 
thousand, two hundred thousand pounds sterling — even three 
hundred thousand pounds annually. It is very difficult for New 
England men even to conceive of such wealth. A farmer in 
Lincolnshire told me that the crop of wheat grown upon his 
farm one year was eighteen thousand bushels. The rent annu- 
ally paid by one farmer in Northumberland, or the Lothians, 
exceeded seven thousand pounds, or thirty-five thousand dollars. 
These facts, which have been stated to me by gentlemen in 
whose veracity I have entire confidence, and who certainly are 
incapable of attempting any "tricks upon travellers," show the 
enormous masses of wealth which are here accumulated. A 
gentleman of distinguished talents and fine classical attainments, 
and who adds to them a public spirit in agricultural improve- 
ment worthy of his education and his high standing in the 
community, has recently added to his property, by the purchase 



ENGLISH CAPITAL, 



15 



of lands, to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds ster- 
Hng, that is, a milhon of dollars ; and his estate, now in cul- 
tivation, and under his own personal inspection, and, with the 
exception of about four hundred acres lying in one body, 
amounts to six thousand acres. Another gentleman, of high 
rank, in respect to whom and to whose amiable family I have a 
constant struggle to restrain the open expression of my grateful 
sense of their kindness, and who — an example here not uncom- 
mon — to an extraordinary brilliancy of talent and an accom- 
plished education unites the most active spirit of agricultural 
improvement, has, though not all in his immediate occupation, 
yet all under his immediate supervision, a tract of more than 
twelve thousaud acres in a course of systematic cultivation or 
gradual improvement.* 

The income of a single nobleman, from his coal mines, 
exceeds one hundred thousand pounds sterling a year ; and I 
believe this is not the largest of the coal possessions. With such 
wealth as this, men may make what improvements they please, 
and attempt what experiments they may deem worth trying ; 
but should such imaginations ever visit a New Englaud or a 
United States farmer in his dreams, if iEsop's fable of the frog, 
who attempted to swell himself to the size of the ox, did not 
cure him, he might be deemed a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. 
There are other circumstances in the case which are to be added, 
and those are the cheapness of iron, the abundance of coal, and 
the admirable facility and skill with which the former material 
is wrought. Wood, and especially the soft woods, which are so 
much wrought among us, are here scarce and dear, and, there- 
fore, seldom used for building purposes ; bricks, and, in many 
parts of the country, good building stone, of the best quality, 
are abundant. Most of the cottages which I have seen have 
brick or stone floors, though many have only hardly-trodden 
clay and earth ; and the entries of the best houses are generally 



* 1 mention tliese examples — to which, from my own knowledge, I might 
add many others — in the form I do, for the purpose, by the way, of showing my 
American friends that agriculture here takes its proper rank among the liberal 
professions, and that not merely as a recreation, but as a business ; and in all its 
minute and practical details, it is not deemed incompatible witli tlie liighest 
distinctions of talent, education, and rank, but rather as a pursuit in which thoy 
all may most usefully and honorably lend their combined influence. 



16 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

paved, and the staircases made of stone. A fence of iron, afford- 
ing a suflicient protection against cattle, is made here at a less 
expense than many wooden fences are made with us. 



VI. — GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY. 

I may be allowed to put down marks of difference in the 
general appearance of the country, as compared with my own, 
as they strike my attention. I need not say that England is 
entirely devoid of a feature which strongly marks the newly- 
cleared parts of my own country, and that is the stumps of trees, 
which have been cut down, or the large, naked, and dead stand- 
ing skeletons of trees, which have been girdled, that the pioneer, 
in subduing the wilderness, might have a chance of getting bread 
for himself and his family, while he was endeavoring to tame the 
wildness of nature and to convert the forest into a fruitful field. 
England exhibits, of course, nothing of this, for the days of its 
youth have long since passed, and its agriculture reckons its pa- 
triarchal centuries. But there is another thing remarkable : the 
cultivated fields are entirely free from rocks and stones, excepting 
the limestone and flint pebbles in the chalk formations. In the 
clay soils and on the peaty moors, they, of course, are not to be 
looked tor ; but, where even they once existed, they have been 
entirely removed or buried, and there is nothing to interrupt or 
impede the progress of the plough. This is not so generally the 
case in my own country as is to be desired. It is, indeed, an 
afiair of very difficult accomplishment in many cases, where, in a 
granitic region for example, the stones are often within stepping 
distance of each other all over a farm, and where every fresh 
ploughing seems to turn up a fresh crop of stones. On the 
other hand, there are too many cases where, with equal ad- 
vantage to the purse as pleasure to the eye, such unsightly rub- 
bish might be removed or buried ; yet there are fields, within 
my own knowledge, where I may say, with confidence, the 
same piles of stones which were collected for removal, full 
half a century ago, retain their original position until this 
day ; the plough, whenever they are broken up, being always 



APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY. * 17 

compelled, at no small expense of time and trouble, (as a 
sailor would say,) to give these heaps a good berth; and only 
going near enough to them to refresh and invigorate the roots 
of the briers and bramble bushes, by which they are usually 
ornamented, and which, to my taste, are quite as offensive in a 
farmer's field as the " mustachios and imperials " so often seen 
upon the monkey masque, which passes, by the mere indulgence 
and good humor of society, for a human face. Throughout 
those parts of England which I have seen, there are, as I have 
already remarked, an exactness, a finish, and a cleanness in the 
cultivation, which impress a stranger most agreeably, and de- 
serve the highest commendation. There are, occasionally, im- 
mense tracts of unenclosed commons, and heaths, and moors, 
where there is no cultivation, where nothing grows, and, in some 
cases, little can ever be made to grow ; or which, otherwise, are 
abandoned to the growth of furze or gorse for the protection of 
the game, and for the pleasures of the chase. These are called 
preserves, and are leased to sportsmen occasionally, or, rather, the 
right to kill game upon them is leased, at a rate which we should 
deem a high rent, even for purposes of cultivation. An eminent 
agriculturist has shown that, in England and Scotland, there are 
full 10,000,000 acres in heath or moor, all susceptible of being 
brought into productive cultivation. These lands, of course, 
remain as they are hj voluntary neglect or design. But I refer 
to the cultivated and improved lands ; and here there is every 
where a surprising neatness and finish — every thing is done, as 
it were, by line and measure ; the corners and the head lands are 
thoroughly cleaned, the open ditches are kept unobstructed, the 
crops are drilled in straight lines, and a newly- ploughed field 
resembles a plaited ruffle from the ironing board of a good 
housewife. Such exactness is exceedingly beautiful, and. 
though it may appear, at first, to consume a good deal of time, 
will be found, in the long rim, to be more economical than the 
slovenly way in which things are often done in many places, 
which I am reluctant to name. There is a pleasure afforded by 
such neatness which is very great, and which can be properly 
appreciated only by those who have been largely endowed by 
nature with the organ of order. 
9 * 



18 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



VII. — HEDGES AND ENCLOSURES. 

The green fences in England, by which the farms are sur- 
rounded and divided, are often a beautiful feature in the land- 
scape. Where they are complete, and neatly trimmed and 
formed, with here and there a single plant left to rise above the 
rest, which many deem more beautiful to the eye than a demo- 
cratic level, and when seen whitened with their blossoms in the 
spring, or blushing deeply with their fruit in autumn, they are 
exceedingly pleasing to the eye. In general, they are formed 
of the white thorn, and sometimes of the holly, and not unfre- 
quently of these two plants intermingled. But I must confess 
myself somewhat disappointed in the condition of the hedges 
throughout England. Of course there are many exceptions, and 
perhaps the cases to which I refer should be considered as 
exceptions to the general fact ; but in frequent instances they 
are greatly neglected. There are many vacancies in them ; they 
are not well trimmed ; they are intermingled Avith various weeds 
and rubbish ; and, instead of being confined to a width of four 
or six feet, they are often seen with their pernicious accompani- 
ments occupying niore than a rod in width. I inquired why 
this was permitted ; and why, when the rest of the face was so 
clear and bright, such dirt spots were allowed to remain : the 
answer was, "that they were left thus for the protection of the 
game, and that they made excellent covers for partridges and 
foxes."' When so much care and expense arc incurred in the 
protection of this kind of game, it is to be hoped that it may 
suggest always the higher duty of taking care of the human 
game, the hungry and ragged children, wliich in some parts of 
England arc as numerous, and growing up as wild, and many of 
them as little taught, as the rabbits in a warren. 

The enclosures in England are of various extent, from ten to 
twenty and fifty acres. There are some farms with scarcely a 
subdivision, and in these cases the stock are soiled. In parts of 
England, however, they resemble the divisions of New England 
farms, and are of various sizes, but generally small, and of all 
shapes, and often not exceeding four or five acres. It is reported 
of a farmer in Devonshire, that he lately cultivated one hundred 
acres of wheat in fifty different fields. There nuist have been 



HEDGES AND ENCLOSURES. 19 

here a great waste of land and labor. One of the most compe- 
tent judges of agricultural improvement in England says, how- 
ever, that "his tenants never wish to have more than one 
ploughed field on a farm." 

The loss in land by too many fences, the loss of time in culti- 
vating in small fields instead of large, on account of the necessity 
of more frequent turnings, and ploughing the head lands by 
themselves, and the actual cost of making and of maintainitig the 
fences, not to add that these fences are a shelter for weeds, and 
a harbor for vermin, are serious considerations. The statement 
of an intelligent practical farmer in Staffordshire, on the highly- 
improved estate of Lord Hatherton, whom I had the pleasure of 
visiting with Mr. P. Pusey, M. P., as given to Mr. Pusey, is well 
worth recording. Speaking of the farm called the Yew-Tree 
Farm, he says, " The turnip field is sixty-five acres ; it was, two 
years back, at the time I entered upon the farm, in eight enclo- 
sures. I have taken up 1914 yards of fence, and intend divid- 
ing it into three fields ; it will take 800 yards of new fence. 
The field in which I was subsoiling is forty-two acres ; it was in 
six enclosures. I took up 1264 yards of fence ; if I divide this 
field, it will take 300 yards of new fence. The land Lord 
Hatherton mentioned on my Deanery Farm was originally in 
twenty-seven enclosures; ninety-one acres. I took up 4427 
yards of fences ; it will now lie in five fields, and will take 1016 
yards of new fence." 

"I cannot," he adds, "really say what land is gained by the 
different operations ; but some of the fences were from three to 
four yards or more wide, that the plough never touched ; my 
new fences are upon the level without ditches. In the whole 
of the old fences there was a great number of ash-trees, which 
are all stocked up, as well as a good part of the oak. only leaving 
a few for ornament and shelter. I think the greatest gain in 
land will be from getting rid of the trees." * 

This is the experience and opinion of a sound practical farmer, 
and is entitled to great weight. In some of the counties large 
enclosures prevail. In parts of Lincolnshire the enclosures 
embrace about fifty acres each ; and on the best managed farms 
which I saw, these fields were mostly laid either in parallelograms 
or squares. In the fens or redeemed lands of Lincolnshire, the 

* Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. part 9, p. 30G, note. 



20 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ditches around and through the land form sufficient and the only 
fences. In the county of Northumberland, and in the Lothians, 
the enclosures are very extensive, and, excepting on the outlines, 
no fences appear. The plough, in such case, when it starts, 
takes its course, and runs to the end of these long fields without 
interruption. 

Mr. Pusey, in Berkshire, on one of the best managed estates 
v/hich I have visited, has induced many of his tenants to take 
away the inner fences and leave the fields open. Sheep are, of 
course, never suffered to graze or roam at pleasure over these 
large fields, but are fed in enclosures formed of movable hurdles 
in different parts of the field, where their manure is required. 
Cattle never go at large upon them ; and the convenience of 
cultivating where the lands are thus open, to say nothing of the 
beauty of the appearance, in addition to other advantages already 
alluded to, is at once obvious and decisive. 



VIII.— IRON AND SUNKEN FENCES. 

I shall speak in this place of two kinds of fences which are 
common on gentlemen's seats, and one of which may be safely 
recommended to my own countrymen. The first is an iron 
fence, called here an invisible fence. This is made of stout iron 
wire, about one third of an inch in diameter, and consists of four 
or five bars or rods, with upright pieces of iron, about an inch 
and a quarter in width, and about one third of an inch in thick- 
ness, placed at about six feet distance from each other. Through 
these upright and flat pieces of iron the bars or rods are passed, 
and they serve to keep them secure. Every alternate one of 
these upright bars has a foot to it, and being sunk in the ground 
about a foot or more, serves as a post to keep the fence steady ; 
and occasionally these posts, if so they may be called, have side 



these, of course, increase the strength of 
they are not indispensable. These fences 
^ on account of the abundance of iron and 
the facility with which it is wrought ; and being kept painted 
commonly of a green color, they do not appear until you approach 



supports, thus ; 
the fence, but 
are very cheap, _Z 



THE ENGLISH PARKS. 21 

near them ; bat no animals attempt to pass them, and, when well 
taken care of, they are durable, and, it is obvious, may be easily 
removed from place to place. 

There is another kind of fence often formed, called a sunken 
fence ; or "ha! ha! " from its generally taking persons by sur- 
prise, as it does not appear until you reach it. A trench is dug 
as deep as it is required that the height of the wall shall be from 
the bottom of the trench ; one side of ihe trench is perpendicu- 
lar, and against this side the wall is erected ; the other side is 
made slanting at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and the 
slanting side is grassed, and may be mowed clear to the bottom, 
so that no land is lost ; but, in truth, a small amount is gained. 
The object is to conceal the fence, so that when placed round 
the grounds of a gentleman's house, the prospect of the lawn or 
field is not interrupted by an unsightly wall ; and the grounds 
within the enclosure tnay be cultivated or embellished in any 
way with shrubs, or flowers, or fruit, and yet the cattle feeding 
beyond it, whom no visible obstruction appears to keep at a 
distance, are efiectually excluded, as no animal attempts ever to 
leap such a fence. 



IX. — THE ENGLISH PARKS. 

I will take this occasion to speak of the extensive parks which 
are to be seen in many parts of the country, and which consti- 
tute a truly magnificent feature in English scenery. These are 
the open grounds, which surround the houses of the rich and 
noble in the country. By open, I do not mean entirely free 
from trees, because many of them are exceedingly well stocked 
with trees, sometimes standing single, at other times in clumps ; 
sometimes in belts, sometimes in rows, and squares, and circular 
plantations ; and more often scattered, as if they were carelessly 
thrown down broadcast. The ground under them is kept in 
grass, and depastured by cattle, sheep, and deer; and affords 
often the richest herbage. With some exceptions, a plough is 
never suffered to disturb these grounds ; and in the neighborhood 
of the house, which is generally placed in the centre of them, 
the portion which is separated from the rest, as I have observed. 



22 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

by an invisible or sunken fence just now described, for the culti- 
vation of ornamental trees and shrubs, is kept so closely and 
evenly shorn, that to walk upon it seems more like treading upon 
velvet than upon grass. Nothing of the kind can be more beau- 
tiful ; and I never before knew the force of that striking expres- 
sion of the prince of poets, Milton, of '• walking on the smooth 
shaven lawn ; " for it seems to be cut with a razor rather than 
with a scythe ; and after a gentle shower it really appears as if 
the field had had its face washed, and its hair combed with a 
fine-tooth comb. It is brought to this perfection by being kept 
often mown ; and I have stood by with perfect admiration to see 
a svvarth mowed evenly and perfectly, where the grass to be cut 
was scarcely more than an inch high. 

These parks which I have described abound, as observed, with 
trees of extraordinary age and size. They are not like the trees 
of our original forests, growing up to a great height, and, on 
account of the crowded state of the neighborhood, throwing out 
few lateral branches ; but what they want in height, they gain 
in breadth ; and, if I may be excused for a hard word, in um- 
brageousness. I measured one in Lord Bagot's celebrated park 
in Staffordshire, and going round the outside of the branches, 
keeping within the droppings, the circuit was a hundred yards. 
The circumference of some of the celebrated oaks in the park of 
the Duke of Portland, which we measured together, when he did 
me the kindness to accompany me through his grounds, seem 
worthy of record. The Little Porter Oak measured 27 feet in 
circumference ; the Great Porter Oak is 29 feet in circumference; 
the Seven Sisters, 33 feet in circumference. The Great Porter 
Oak was of a very large diameter, 50 feet above the ground ; 
and the opening in the trunk of the Green Dale Oak was at one 
time large enough to admit the passage of a small carriage 
through it; by advancing years the space has become somewhat 
contracted. These indeed are noble trees, though it must be 
confessed that they were thrown quite into the shade by the 
magnificent Kentucky Buttonwood or Sycamore, of whose 
trunk I saw a complete section exhibited at Derby, measuring 
25 feet in diameter and 75 feet in circumference. This was 
brought from the United States, and indeed might well be 
denominated the mammoth of the forest. 

In these ancient parks, oaks and beeches are the predominant 
trees, with occasional chestnuts and ashes. In very many cases 



THE ENGLISH PARKS. 23 

I saw the beauty and force of that first line in the pastorals of 
Virgil, where he addresses Titynis as " playing upon his lute 
under the spreading shade of a heech-treey These trees are 
looked upon with great veneration ; in many cases, they are num- 
bered; in some, a label is affixed to them, giving their age; 
sometimes a stone monument is erected, saying when and by 
whom this forest or this clump was planted ; and commonly 
some record is kept of them as a part of the family history. I 
respect this trait in the character of the English, and I sympa- 
thize with them in their veneration for old trees. They are the 
growth often of centuries, and the monuments of years gone by. 
They were the companions of our fathers, who, it may be, were 
nourished by their fruit, and reposed under their shade. Perhaps 
they were planted by the very hands of those from whom we 
have descended ; and whose far-sighted and comprehensive 
beneficence embraced a distant posterity. How many revolu- 
tions and vicissitudes in the fortunes of men have they surveyed 
and survived ! They have been pelted by many a storm ; the 
hoarse and swift wind has often growled and whistled among 
their branches ; the lightnings and tempest have many a time 
bent their limbs and scathed their trunks. But they, like the 
good and the truly great in seasons of trial, have stood firm and 
retained their integrity. They have seen one generation of men 
treading upon the heels of another, and rapidly passing away ; 
wars have burst forth in volcanic explosions, and have gone out ■ 
revolutions have made their changes, and the wheel again 
returned to its starting point ; governments and princes have 
flourished and faded ; and the current of human destiny has 
flowed at their roots, bearing onwards to the traveller's bourn 
one family and one people after another ; but they still stand, 
green in their old age, as the mute yet eloquent historians of 
departed years. Why should we not look upon them with rev- 
erence ? I cannot quite enter into the enthusiasm of an excel- 
lent friend, who used to say that the cutting down of an old tree 
ought to be made a capital ofl'ence at law ; yet I deem it almost 
sacrilegious to destroy them, excepting where necessity demands 
it ; and I would always advise that an old tree, standing in a 
conspicuous station either for use or ornament, should be at least 
once more wintered and summered before the sentence of death, 
which may be passed upon it, is carried into execution. 

The trees in the park of the palace of Hampton Court are, 



24 ETTROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

many of them, the horse-chestnut and the lime, of great age and 
eminent beauty ; several straight lines of them forming, for a 
long distance, the approach to the palace. On a clear, bright 
day. at the season of their flowering, I passed through this mag- 
nificent avenue with inexpressible delight. I passed through 
them again late in the autumn, when the frost had marred their 
beauty, and the autumnal gales had stripped off their leaves ; but 
they were still venerable in the simple majesty of their gigantic 
and spreading forms. I could not help reflecting, with grateful 
emotion, on that beneficent Power, which shall presently breathe 
upon these apparently lifeless statues, and clothe them with the 
glittering foliage of spring, and the rich and splendid glories of 
summer. So be it with those of us who have got far on into 
the autumn, or stand shivering in the winter of life ! 

The extent of these parks, in many cases, filled me with sur- 
prise. They embrace hundreds, in some instances thousands, of 
acres ; * and you enter them by gates, where a porter's lodge is 
always to be found. After entering the park gate, I have rode 
sometimes several miles before reaching the house. They arc 
in general devoted to the pasturage of sheep, cattle, and deer. 
In the park at Chatsworth, the herd of deer exceeded sixteen 
hundred. These deer are kept at no inconsiderable expense, 
requiring abundant pasturage in summer, and hay and grain in 
winter. An English pasture is seldom or never ploughed. Many 
of them have been in grass beyond the memory of any one living. 
The turf becomes extremely close and hard ; and the feeding of 
sheep and cattle undoubtedly enriches the land, especially under 
the careful management of one eminent farmer, — and many 
more, doubtless, are like him, — on whose pasture grounds the 
manure of the cattle was daily collected and evenly spread. 

In speaking of the parks in the country, I surely ought not to 
pass in silence the magnificent parks of London, as truly mag- 
nificent they must be called, including St. James's Park, Green 
Park, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and Regent's Park. 

Kensington Gardens, exclusive of private gardens, within its 
enclosures contains 227 acres ; Hyde Park, 380 acres ; Green 
Park, connected with St. James's Park, 56 acres ; St. James's 
Park, 87 acres ; Regent's Park, 372 acres ; terraces and canals 
connected with Regent's Park, 80 acres — making a grand total 

* Windsor Great Park contains 3500 acres, and the Little Park 300 acres. 



THE ENGLISH PARKS. iio 

of 1202 acres. To these should be added the large, elegant, and 
Jiighly-embellished public squares in various parts of London, 
and even in the most crowded parts of the old city, which, in 
all, probably exceed 200 acres. These magnificent parks, it 
must be remembered, are in the midst of a populous town, 
including upwards of two millions of inhabitants, and are open 
to the public for exercise, health, and amusement. Tliey are, at 
the same time, to a degree stocked with sheep and cows. 

It is impossible to over-estimate the value to health of these 
open spaces, and the amount of recreation and rational enjoyment 
which they afford to this vast population. In each of the large 
parks — Kensington, Hyde Park, and St. James's — there are 
extensive bodies of water, artificial lakes, in some places adorned 
with elegant bridges, and in St. James's Park studded with 
pretty islands and shrubbery. Here large varieties of aquatic 
birds are kept, to the great amusement of the thousands of chil- 
dren, who coax them to the shore with crumbs of bread and cake, 
the birds being so tame as almost to feed out of their hands, and 
for the instruction of older heads. There is likewise an exceed- 
ingly beautiful and tasteful cottage, of Gothic architecture, at the 
end of the lake in St. James's Park, for the residence of the 
keeper of the birds. There are always to be found in some parts 
of the parks, or at the keepers' different lodges, some cows kept, 
where a glass of milk, unadulterated and fresh from the fountain, 
can be had for those persons who, for health or pleasure, seek 
the delicious beverage in its purity. The numbers and tameness 
of the birds in these pleasure-grounds is a beautiful circumstance, 
which it might be well to consider in some other quarters. 
Their safety and lives are held sacred ; and the birds gratefully, 
and, to a feeling heart, delightfully acknowledge this kindness 
by the most expressive confidence, alighting fearlessly in the 
path before you, as though they would invite you to cultivate 
their acquaintance. Man, in general, is a great savage, and a 
ferocious and insatiate animal of prey. He makes contimial war 
upon many of the animals below him, not for subsistence merely, 
but for pleasure. His conduct towards the brute creation shows, 
too often, how certain he is to abuse unlimited power, and con- 
veys a strong argument against despotic authority. Indeed, his 
war upon the birds merely as matter of sport, always makes me 
look upon him with a degree of shuddering, and feel that a man 
who can find his pleasure in the wanton destruction of little 
3 



26 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

birds, the most humble of all animals in their claims, the most 
delicate, innocent, and pure in all their tastes and habits, and 
comparatively useless for food, puts himself beyond the pale of 
humanity, and could scarcely, with safetj^-, be trusted with a 
child. It were worth considering always, how many of our 
pleasures are purchased at a most bitter expense of happiness and 
life to others ! Two or three days' coursing, manly and health- 
ful as the exercise on horseback undoubtedly is, and strongly 
exciting as the sport is, did not quite reconcile me to it ; and the 
wailings and shriekings of the atfrighted and dying hares, in the 
jaws of the hounds, sounded in my ears, for several days after- 
wards, like the cries of expiring children. 

I shall not be straying from my proper duty if I urge the 
beneficent example of London strongly upon my own country- 
men. In Boston, excepting the Common — containing about 
forty-five acres of ground, exceedingly beautiful in its location 
and improvements — and some few openings upon a very limited 
scale, there is a large and constantly increasing population crowded 
together in one dense mass, with narrow streets and confined 
alleys, and basement stories, doomed to a comparative privation 
of Heaven's freest and greatest blessings — light and air. A 
Botanical and Pleasure Garden has been laid out, and is main- 
tained by private subscription, accessible to subscribers or upon 
the payment of a light fee, which it is earnestly to be hoped, for 
the credit of this city, long distinguished by its liberality and 
public spirit, may receive every encouragement, so that its im- 
provements and advantages may be greatly extended. New York, 
with a population of three times the extent of Boston, is scarcely 
more favored, excepting in the width of its streets ; for, with the 
exception of those delightful grounds, the Battery, at the very 
extremity of the city, the open space in front of the City Hall, 
dignified, pa?' excellence, by the name of the Park, and the open 
grounds attached to St. John's Church, and the University, but 
not accessible to the public, the city has no provision of this kind 
for public recreation and health. As there is little room in the 
city proper which can now be obtained, she ought at once, at 
any expense, to secure the charming grounds at Hoboken, to be 
devoted forever and exclusively to these objects. Having already, 
with the most honorable enterprise, achieved one of the most 
extraordinary undertakings of the age, or indeed of any age, — 
that of bringing, by a capacious tunnel of forty miles in length, a 



THE ENGLISH PARKS. 27 

river of pure water into her city, and dispensing, Avith an unre- 
strained munificence, to those who cannot purchase it, this most 
important element, next to vital air, of human existence ; let her 
go on and make the other provision, to which I have referred, 
for the health and comfort of a population already great, and 
destined to increase with an unexampled rapidity beyond any 
bounds which the imagination would now even dare to prescribe. 

Philadelphia has set a better example than most other cities in 
this respect, in having laid out her streets of a capacious width, 
in having given to most of her houses yards or gardens of a good 
size, and in having formed, in different parts of the city, public 
squares of some extent, which are equally ornamental and useful. 
But she has done little compared with what she might have 
done ; and it is to be hoped that she will be prompted to add to 
a city, the most convenient and beautiful in the Union, some 
public gardens and pleasure-grounds, admission to which shall be 
freely offered to her inhabitants ; and more especially for the 
benefit of that class of them who can have no such indulgences 
but as the ofterings of public beneficence. Baltimore has noth- 
ing that deserves the name of a square or a pleasure-ground, 
unless we are to rank under that designation the beautiful enclo- 
sure which she has recently purchased for a cemetery ; a place, 
indeed, for a melancholy and instructive pleasure, but more 
properly devoted to silence and seclusion, and not at all of the 
character to which I refer. Lowell — destined to contain a large 
and laborious population, and of a character particularly demand- 
ing such places of recreation, with an unlimited extent of land 
at her disposal costing scarcely any thing, and with an invest- 
ment in her manufacturing establishments of ten or eleven mil- 
lions of dollars — has not a public square so large as a pocket- 
handkerchief. This omission has always impressed me with 
painful surprise. Knowing, as I do, the high character of the 
gentleman who founded and built this flourishing city, now 
grown to manhood almost in a day, I can ascribe such an omis- 
sion only to a want of consideration, and to the fact that the 
population has already extended far beyond any calculations 
which they could, with sobriety, have formed at its commence- 
ment. It is not too late to supply this omission, which interest, 
as well as philanthropy, most strongly dictates. 

Cleanliness, fresh air, and pure water, and the opportunity and 
the means of relaxation and innocent recreation, are almost as 



28 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

essential to morals as to health. No one can doubt, in this 
respect, their direct and beneficial influence. The rich can take 
care of themselves, and can flee the sources of pestilence, and go 
after health and recreation where they are to be found. Not so 
with the poorer and humbler classes in society, to whose labor 
and service the rich owe all their wealth and many of their 
pleasures. Whoever goes into the low places in crowded cities, 
into the subterranean abodes where these wretched beings con- 
gregate like rabbits in a warren, or, rather, like swine in their 
sties, and enters into the melancholy statistics of mortality, in 
such cases will learn some measure of the sufl^'ering which is 
here endured. In London, and other places of a similar char- 
acter, the presence of the police and the officers of the peace, 
always in such places in strong force, will remind him that there 
is a connection not to be overlooked between condition and 
character, between destitution and crime, between outward filth 
and impurity of mind, neglect of person and neglect of morals. 
The most crowded parts of London are the most vicious parts ; 
and a new should not neglect the experience of an old country. 
A city without public squares and public gardens should provide 
them, and on a most liberal scale. In a pecuniary point of view, 
as rendering a residence in the city the more desirable, and so 
increasing the value of estates in it, I have no doubt that it 
would yield ample advantages and profits. But health and 
morals are not to be measured by any pecuniary standard ; and 
where wholesome water, and fresh air, and light, and sunshine, 
and cleanliness are concerned, no expense and cost are to be con- 
sidered as exorbitant. To talk about the value of land in such 
cases, and to place this in competition with health, comfort, and 
morals, is equally short-sighted and inhuman. 

The public parks and pleasure-grounds in London are highly 
ornamented with shrubs, plants, and flowers, and accessible to 
the public for exercise and recreation. In St. James's Park, and 
in some others, metallic labels are aflixed to the foreign plants 
and shrubs, with the botanical and tiie vulgar name of the plants 
upon them, and the class and the country to which they belong. 
This is a beautiful arrangement, and well deserving imitation ; 
furnishing instruction, as well as satisfaction ; inciting to the 
study of botany, and opening a sealed book to the unaided and 
curious student of nature. Every one knows the advantage of 
teaching by example ; and what an interest is given to the 



ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS AND FLOWERS. 29 

objects, which the natural and visible world presents, by the 
associations which science throws around them. This practice, 
I found, prevailed in other public gardens and pleasure-grounds. 
It was the case in the beautiful and highly-cultivated botanical 
garden in the neighborhood of Liverpool, which, though created 
and supported by private subscriptions, and for scientific pur- 
poses, is yet free of access to the public one or more days in the 
week. The same is the case with the very tasteful garden in 
Sheffield, a romantic and charmiijg piece of ground, which, 
though on a small scale, combines many attractions ; and like- 
wise with the Arboretum at Derby, embracing, I think, about 
eleven acres, and formed into a garden and pleasure-ground for 
the public recreation. This last is the fruit of individual mu- 
nificence. Mr. Strutt, an eminent manufacturer at Derby, em- 
ployed Mr. Loudon — the late distinguished horticultural writer 
— to lay out, plant, and ornament these grounds, at an expense 
of ten thousand poimds sterling, or fifty thousand dollars ; and 
then, with eminent liberality, gave them to the city of Derby 
for the public use and enjoyment of its inhabitants. Tens of 
thousands of pounds expended in the erection of a Corinthian 
column, or a marble mausoleum, would not have formed so 
durable or extended a memorial of him ; and thousands upon 
thousands yet unborn, in the enjoyment of this beneficence, will 
invoke blessings upon his memory. 



X. — ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS AND FLOWERS. 

The cultivation of flowers and shrubs is a prominent feature 
in the landscape of England ; and a circumstance which has 
given no little gratification to my national pride, has been the 
profusion of American plants, azalias and kalmias, magnolias and 
rhododendrons, and a large variety of pines and firs, which are 
seen in the shrubberies and plantations and pleasure-grounds, 
both public and private. A very large establishment in London. 
is exclusively devoted to the sale of American plants ; and they 
are every where admired for the splendor of their foliage and the 
beauty of their flowers. Greenhouses and conservatories are 
3* 



30 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



almost universal in the country, where any thing like a garden 
exists; and the better class of houses are surrounded and adorned 
with a great variety of flowering shrubs and plants, presentitig, 
through the season, a charming succession of gay and brilliant 
ornaments. Even the laborer's humble cottage, ordinarily, I 
am compelled to admit, any thing but a picturesque object, will 
occasionally have its flowering shrubs adorning its door-way, and 
the ivy hanging its beautiful tresses over its window, forming, as 
it were, a mirror, set in a frame of the richest green. The vil- 
lage of Marr, in Yorkshire, not far from Doncaster, and the 
village of Edensor, in Derbyshire, near Chatsvvorth, and the 
village of Lord Brownlow, in Lincolnshire, the best built and 
by far the handsomest villages I have yet seen in England, to 
cottages of an excellent and tasteful construction, monuments of 
the liberality of their proprietors, add these beautiful rural embel- 
lishments of shrubs and flowers, and compel a reflecting mind to 
admit the moral influence of such arrangements upon the char- 
acter and manners of their inhabitants. Churches and ruins, 
likewise, are often seen spread over with the richest mantlings 
of ivy ; and, among many others, the venerable and magnificent 
remains of Hardwicke Hall, for example, are covered, I may 
say, in the season of its flowering, with a gorgeous robe of it, 
matting its sides with indescribable luxuriance, climbing its 
lofty battlements, and fringing its empty windoAvs and broken 
arches, as though Nature would make the pall of death exqui- 
sitely beautiful and splendid, that she might conceal the hideous- 
ness of decay, and shut from the sight of frail mortals these 
aff'ecting monuments of the vanity of human grandeur and pride. 

I have said and written a great deal to my countrymen about 
the cultivation of flowers, ornamental gardening, and rural em- 
bellishments ; and I would read them a homily on the subject 
every day of every remaining year of my life, if I thought it 
would have the effect which I desire, of inducing them to make 
this matter of particular attention and care. When any man 
asks me what is the use of shrubs and flowers, my first impulse 
always is, to look under his hat and see the length of his ears. 
I am heartily sick of measuring every thing by a standard of 
mere utility and profit; and as heartily do I pity the man who 
can see no good in life but in pecuniary gain, or in the mere 
animal indulgences of eating and drinking. 

The establishment of horticultural societies in Salem, Boston, 



CLIMATE OF ENGLAND. 31 

Worcester, New Haven, New York, and Philadelphia, — and I 
speak of these societies in particular because I have attended the 
exhibitions of most of them, — has rendered an immense benefit 
to the country, not merely in the introduction of new and valuable 
fruits and vegetables, and in what they liave done to improve 
and perfect the cultivation of those long known among us, but 
in the improvement of the public taste, and the powerful stimu- 
lus they have given to the cultivation of flowers and the forma- 
tion of gardens and ornamental grounds throughout the country. 
Few countries in temperate latitudes are richer in the floral 
kingdom of nature, and the luxuriance of vegetable growth and 
the splendors of vegetable beauty, than the United States. 
Why should not flowers be cultivated ? Was the human eye, 
that wonder of wonders, that matchless organ of our physical 
constitution, that inexhaustible instrument of exalted and varied 
pleasures, made in vain ? Are the forms of beauty in the natu- 
ral world, infinitely multiplied as they are around us, made for 
any other purpose than to be enjoyed ? And what better means 
can we take to strengthen the domestic affections, of all others 
the most favorable to virtue, than to render our homes as beauti- 
ful and as attractive as possible ? Who does not see constantly 
the influence of external circumstances upon character as well as 
comfort ; and perceive how greatly order, exactness, and personal 
neatness contribute to form and strengthen the sense of moral 
exactness and propriety ? 

The horticultural establishments of England, their vegetable 
gardens, their flower gardens, their shrubberies and plantations, 
their greenhouses and conservatories, are upon the most exten- 
sive scale. 



XL — CLIMATE OF ENGLAND. 

Another marked difference in the agricultural condition of 
England and the northern portion of the United States, is in the 
climate. I cannot speak with any confidence of Scotland, but 
the climate of England must be pronounced highly temperate. 
It is favorable to the growth and the constant vigor and freshness 
of the grasses. It is not only temperate, but moist. The last 



32 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

season may have been peculiar. I landed in Liverpool near the 
end of April ; and there was more or less rain for forty-six days 
in succession, until I became quite satisfied that an umbrella was 
as necessary as a hat. When the clear weather finally set in, 
we had two months, or more, of as fine weather for harvesting 
as I ever knew, with scarcely the intervention of a day's rain ; 
yet there was nothing of the parching heat of our summers, and 
I saw no land burnt up by drought. It is now December, and I 
have scarcely seen any ice, and not a flake of snow ; and there 
is no frost in the ground. Many persons speak of this as the 
usual temperature, and say that the cold weather does not com- 
mence until after Christmas. The dews appear to me very light, 
owing, as I suppose, to the mildness of the days ; and there have 
been none of those blowing clouds of dust with which our air is 
often charged, and which, with us, after long droughts, are very 
disagreeable. Of thunder and lightning this season I am unable 
to recall a single instance ; and at no time of the day has the 
heat been in the slightest degree oppressive.* 

Their insular situation exposes them to frequent and dense 
fogs, which interpose to prevent the earth being ever parched by 
drought ; and the rains to which they are subject keep the earth, 
where it is of a retentive character, much soaked with water, 
and preserve an almost perpetual greenness of vegetation. 

In many parts of England, the crops of turnips are never pulled 
until they are wanted for feeding in the course of the winter ; in 
other places, they require a very slight covering to protect them 
from the frost. In most cases, sheep do not require to be housed ; 
and in some cases, neat cattle get their chief living in the fields 
through a great part of the winter, though I cannot but regard 
this practice as very bad husbandry. Ploughing appears to be 
seldom interrupted for any length of time ; and wheat is sown 



* The annual average depth of rain in Eno^land is about two feet. In 1840, 
for instance, the depth at Aberdeen was 24.G27 inches ; at Empingham, 18.58 ; 
Epping, 20.767; Fahiiouth, 31.511; Gosport, 25.525 ; Greenwich, 18.24 ; York, 
24.72 inches. That is perhaps not much below the average of the continent of 
Europe. Some portions of Western Europe, liowever, are exceedingly wet ; 123 
inches have been noted to fall at Coimbra, in Portugal, in a year. The fall of 
rain is still greater in the West Indies. At St. Domingo, 120 inches ; at Cay- 
enne, 116 inches ; at Maranham, 277 inches. So tliat even under the equator, a 
sufficient supply of rain water can be obtained for tlie service of the inhabitants. 
— jparwier's Almanac. 



CLIMATE OB' ENGLAND. 33 

from October to April. In parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Delaware, and the states south, the farmers enjoy similar advan- 
tages of a mild temperature ; but north of these, the despotism 
of frost and snow commences, and holds undisputed sway for 
four months in the year. Yet, notwithstanding this, our seasons 
are quite long enougii for the perfect ripening of all the crops 
grown among us; and, with a little extra labor, even the valua- 
ble green crops, which here play so important a part in the feed- 
ing of stock and the enriching of the land, might, if deemed 
expedient, be raised and used among us. Of this, however, I 
shall speak hereafter. These remarks apply only to what has 
come under my own personal observation ; and I can be said to 
have seen, as yet, only a small part of England. The winter 
management of farms here is a matter of as much importance as 
the summer husbandry, and will claim my particular attention. 
The disposal of the produce, the fattening of animals, the breeds 
or kinds of live stock most likely to make a good return to the 
farmer, and the whole management of the manure yards, are 
subjects in relation to which much useful instruction is to be 
obtained. 

It would seem as though a country with so rough and severe 
a climate as New England, and with such long winters as prevail 
there, which, for more than a third part of the year, interrupt 
entirely all the out-door operations of husbandry, must be ex- 
ceedingly unfriendly to agriculture, compared with one v/here 
the winters are open and field-labor is practicable through the 
whole of the year. This is, indeed, the case ; yet there are 
some compensations for these privations and disadvantages, 
which in New England are duly appreciated, as the winter, when 
labor is to a great degree suspended, is the special season for the 
education of the young ; for reading and mental improvement, 
and for the most friendly and social intercourse. If these cir- 
cumstances may be thought to have no connection with agricul- 
ture, strictly so called, yet they are certainly to be considered in 
reference to the condition of the agricultural population ; and in 
every circumstance which renders their condition more comfort- 
able and happy, and, above all, which advances their intelli- 
gence, we may ordinarily look for a corresponding improvement 
in their cultivation and rural husbandry. A New England village 
resembles, to a great degree, a united and happy family, where 
perfect equality prevails ; where a friendly sympathy is every 



34 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Avhere active and strong ; and where all seem bound to con- 
tribute, according to their power, to the general welfare, comfort, 
and improvement. Society exists in the United States under 
circumstances so entirely different from those in which it is found 
here, that a comparison can hardly be instituted between them. 
The intercourse to which I have here referred, can scarcely be 
said to exist in England ; the general character of the laboring 
population being not many removes, as far as intellectual im- 
provement is concerned, above that of the other animals which 
cultivate their fields. 

In several respects, it must be admitted, the mild temperature 
of the English climate affords singular advantages. The winter 
season furnishes the best opportunity for draining and ditching ; 
the active operations of the farm being, in a degree, suspended, 
labor is obtained at a low rate ; and as a great portion of field 
v/ork, in England, is done by the piece instead of the day, the 
shortness of the days makes no difference of expense to the 
employer. 



XII. — AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 

I have referred to some differences in the condition of society 
here, and in the United States, and those differences it may be 
well to understand. The agricultural population in England is 
divided into three classes — the landlord, the tenant farmer or 
occupier, and the laborer. 

1. The Landlords ; Rents ; and Taxes. — The landlord 
is the owner of the soil. Most of the landlords are noblemen or 
gentlemen, and are looked up to with a deference and veneration, 
on account of their rank, with which those of us who have been 
educated in a condition of society where titles and ranks are 
unknown, find it difficult to sympathize. They own the land. 
Some few of them keep portions of their vast territories in their 
own occupation, and under their own management ; but, by 
most of them, their lands are leased in farms of diflerent sizes, 
seldom less than three or four hundred acres, and in many cases 
eight hundred, a thousand, and twelve hundred acres. The rent 
of land varies in different places ; in some being as lov.'- as five 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 35 

shillings ; in others rising to almost as many pounds. Rents are 
in general paid in money. Sometimes they are valued in kind ; 
that is, the tenant engaging to pay so many bushels of wheat, or 
so many bushels of barley, or such amount of other products ; 
but in these cases, also, the landlord usually receives his rent in 
money according to the current prices of these articles. The 
rents are paid in semi-annual payments. The fair rent of land 
is sometimes estimated at a third of its products ; by some, a 
different rule is adopted, which is, after all the expenses of culti- 
vation and the usual assessments are deducted from the gross 
proceeds, that the balance remaining should be divided equally 
between the landlord and the tenant. In general, however, as 
far as my observation has extended, the rate of rent is not deter- 
mined by any particular rule, other than that which prevails in 
most commercial transactions, that each party makes the best bar- 
gain for himself that he is able. It is only just to add that in all 
the cases, without exception, which have come under my remark, 
there has seemed to me, on the part of the landlords, a fair measure 
of liberality ; the rents in general bearing a small proportion to 
the legal interest of the money at which the lands are valued, and 
for which they could be sold at once; lands costing £60 sterling, 
or 300 dollars per acre, being frequently let for 30s. or £2 ster- 
ling per acre, that is, less than eight or ten dollars per acre. We 
are not well satisfied in the United States with a return from 
our land under five or six per cent, on its cost ; but the landlords 
here seldom obtain more than two and a half per cent, or three 
per cent, on the price which the land would command, if brought 
into the market. The low rents which are obtained show the 
abundance of wealth, and ho\y greatly an investment in land is 
valued for its security; and the active competition for leases, 
which appears in almost every part of the country when farms 
are to be let, seems to imply that the rents are reasonable, and, 
more than that, liberal. As I shall not hesitate to put down my 
impressions of the country, of men and things, with the utmost 
frankness, avoiding all personalities, I must say that there has 
appeared to me on the part of the landowners, with many of 
whom, among the largest in the country, I have had the pleasure 
of becoming acquainted, the most marked liberality in the man- 
agement of their great estates, both in the terms and continuance 
of their leases, and in the aid rendered to their tenants in making 
improvements. The liberality and amount of the expenditures 



36 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

indeed strike an American with astonishment. In the United 
States, and especially in the northern parts of it, where there is 
a constant struggle to live, where men have to contend with a 
severe climate and a stubborn soil, and where money is compara- 
tively scarce, the accumulations small, and the farms extremely 
limited, and where the first lesson taught to a child, even in 
his swaddling clothes, is a lesson of self-dependence, it is not 
surprising that men should be compelled with extreme care to 
husband their small means, and that a frugality, in itself highly 
commendable, should sometimes verge within the limits of mean- 
ness. This, indeed, is far better than that reckless expenditure, 
without regard to one's means, which we sometimes see, and 
which is almost sure to involve the individual who indulges in 
it in irretrievable debt and ruin. But there cannot be a doubt 
that in New England we often commit a great error in withhold- 
ing a reasonable expenditure in the improvement of our lands ; 
and that we are not sufliciently impressed with the obvious truth, 
that a proper expenditure of capital is as important to a success- 
ful and improved agriculture, as to the successful prosecution of 
any branch of manufactures, trade, or commerce. 

Leases may be annual, or at will, or for a term of years. When 
land is taken by the year, it is understood that the tenant has six 
months' notice of the intention of the landlord not to renew his 
lease, if such intention exist. The lands in England are bur- 
dened with taxes from which the United States are free. These, 
in many cases, amount to a sum equal to the rent of the land. 
The tithes, or tenth of every article produced, are not now taken 
in kind, but arc commuted and paid in money. The poor and 
parochial rates are often heavy ; tljese all are paid by the tenant, 
unless a special agreement is made to the contrary. 

Some persons are disposed to question the right of individuals 
to such extensive tracts of land, which, in many instances, they 
neither cultivate themselves, nor suffer others to cultivate, and 
which descend undiminished through successive generations in 
the same family. The legal or constitutional right is determined 
by statute ; upon the moral right, or the right founded upon prin- 
ciples of political justice, I am not disposed to enter, as this 
would lead me to discuss the foundations of all property — a sub- 
ject foreign from my purpose. The tithe system, as it exists 
here, strikes a foreign and unpractised eye as a singular feature in 
the condition of things. A tithe, or tenth part of the produce 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 37 

of the land, according to the provisions of the Levitical law in 
respect to the Jewish priesthood, was taken for the support of 
the established religion ; and the priests and clergy of the differ- 
ent parishes were accustomed to levy it in kind, and to exact it 
to tiie extremity of every tenth portion of the honey made by 
bees in the farmer's hives, every tenth chicken in the good 
wife's poultry-yard, and every tenth egg laid by her fowls. In- 
deed, the monks, if reports be true, had always a remarkably 
keen appetite for honey, and poultry, and eggs. By one of the 
kings of England, the possessions of the church were seized and 
confiscated ; and the right of claiming tithes, in many parishes 
or districts, was given to his friends, reserving a very small por- 
tion for the support of the clergy. A great portion of the tithes 
are now, therefore, held by laymen ; and in some parishes, for 
example, where the tithes amount to several thousand pounds, 
the clergyman gets only as many hundreds ; and the tithes of 
any particular parish or place, or rather the right to enforce and 
receive them, is as much a matter of sale or traffic as the land 
itself It is not for me to quarrel with the institutions of a 
country of which I am neither citizen nor subject ; but it is 
obvious that every burden upon the land must, to a degree, 
operate to the prejudice of agriculture ; and the matter of levy- 
ing a tax originally intended exclusively for the support of 
religious institutions, after it has long since avowedly ceased to 
be applied in any form to that object, is an affair for those to 
consider who are especially affected by it. 1 have not deemed it 
necessary to inquire into the amount paid in this way, which 
varies considerably in different places ; but the amount stated to 
me by one farmer, the occupier of 250 acres of land, and whose . 
rent is £370, is at least £60 sterling (or 300 dollars) per year in 
parochial rates, including all but specific taxes. The poor-rates 
are in many cases extremely burdensome upon the land, the 
wages of the laborers being in general so limited as not to admit, 
but in rare cases, of their laying aside any of their earnings for 
old age, or seasons of sickness and calamity. The support of 
the poor formerly rested, in a great measure, upon the religious 
houses, which were very largely endowed with lands and posses- 
sions for this very object ; but when these houses were broken 
up and the property taken by the state, this burden was trans- 
ferred to the backs of the landholders or occupiers. The indi- 
vidual possessions of the landowners are sometimes enormous, 
4 



38 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. 

amounting in many cases to scores of thousands of acres, and in 
one instance within my knowledge, to seventy-five thousand 
acres ; and in another, I believe, to more than a million acres. 

2. The Farmers. — Next come the farmers, who lease the 
land of the landowners. These men are not like farmers in the 
United States, who themselves labor in the field ; they rarely do 
any personal labor whatever. They are, in general, a substan- 
tial and well-informed body of men ; and many of them live in 
a style of elegance and fashion. Many of them are persons of 
considerable property, as indeed they must be in order to manage 
the farms which they undertake. The capital necessary to 
manage a stock or an arable farm must be always estimated at 
double or treble the amount of rent ; and, in general, cannot be 
set down at less than £10 sterling, or 50 dollars, per acre. The 
stock required for a grazing is, of course, much more than for an 
arable farm : but in no case can success be looked for without 
ample means of outlay. In no respect does the agriculture of 
England difter more from that of the United States, especially 
from that of the Northern States, than in regard to capital. Our 
farmers, in general, have little floating capital. They attempt 
to get along with the least possible expenditure. Under such 
circumstances, they operate to very great disadvantage. They can 
never wait for a market. They cannot bring out the capabilities 
of their farms; and the results of their farming are consequently 
limited and meagre. The difference between a new country 
contending, as it were, for existence, and an old country operat- 
ing with the accumulations of years and centuries, is most sensi- 
bly marked ; the expenses incurred on some farms in England 
solely for manures purchased, exceeding thousands of pounds 
sterling, and the cost merely of grass seeds, are perfectly surpris- 
ing to an American farmer ; yet experience has demonstrated 
that, in these cases, the most liberal outlay of capital is the most 
sure to be followed by successful results. 

The farmers in England, as far as I have had the pleasure to 
meet with them, are a well-informed set of men, especially on 
subjects connected with their particular pursuits. There, of 
course, is the variety among them which is to be found in other 
classes ; but their manners, without exception, are courteous and 
agreeable, their hospitality distinguished, and their housekeeping 
— and I speak with the authority of a connoisseur in these mat- 
ters — is admirable. Indeed, it has not yet been my misfortune 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 39 

to meet, in England or Scotland, with a single instance of negli- 
gence in any private house which I have visited ; but, on the 
other hand, tlic most exemplary neatness. I cannot say as much 
of all the hotels or taverns in the country, many of which arc 
far inferior in all respects, and none of them superior in any, to 
our best hotels. There is one circumstance in English manners 
so much to the credit of their housekeeping, that I shall, for the 
best of reasons, venture to remind my American friends of it, 
although I fear that any reformation in the case is hopeless. In 
no private house which I have visited have I been smothered or 
offended with tobacco smoke ; and I have seen the offensive and 
useless habit of chewing tobacco since I came to England in but 
one solitary instance, and that was on the part of an American. 
At public dinners, the same reserve is not practised, and the 
atmosphere becomes as thick as a London fog. I will not inter- 
fere with any gentleman's private pleasures ; but I will lose no 
fair opportunity of protesting against a practice which has little 
to recommend it, and in respect to which I think we have good 
grounds to ask, What right has any man to indulge in any 
mere personal or selfish gratification, in-doors or without, at the 
expense of his neighbor's comfort ? I know very well the value 
to my own country, as a branch of agriculture, of the produc- 
tion of tobacco; but I cannot look upon its cultivation with 
much complacency. Nor does the exhausted condition of the 
soil, where tobacco has been some time cultivated, reconcile me 
to its culture. Indeed, how much were it to be wished that 
instead of the production of an article useless for subsistence and 
pernicious to health, there could be substituted the cultivation 
of plants for the food and comfort of millions now sufiering from 
the want of them ! 

3. The Agricultural Laborers. — Next to the farmers come 
the laborers ; and these three classes preserve the lines of distinc- 
tion among them with as much caution and strictness, as they 
preserve the lines and boundaries of their estates. These dis- 
tinctions strike a visitor from the United States with much 
force; but, in England, they have been so long established — 
are so interwoven in the texture of society — and men arc, by 
education and habit, so trained in them, that their propriety or 
expediency is never matter of question. The nobleman will 
sometimes, as an act of courtesy and kindness, invite his tenant- 
farmer to his table ; but such a visit is never expected to be 




40 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

returned. The farmer would under no circumstances invite the 
laborer to his table, or visit him as a friend or neighbor. I do 
not mean to imply that there is, on the part of the higher classes 
of society in England, any insolence or arrogance in their treat- 
ment of their inferiors. Free as my intercourse has been with 
the highest and the middle classes, I have seen no instance of 
this, nor any thing approaching it, but the contrary : and the 
best bred men in the country — the true gentlemen — are dis- 
tinguished by their courtesy and the absence of all ostentatious 
pretensions. While they naturally fall into the orbit, in which 
birth, education, and the political institutions of the country 
have accustomed them to revolve, the well-principled among 
them would, I am siu'e, be the last persons, by any assumptions, 
voluntarily to mortify one below them with a sense of his 
inferiority. 

The farm laborers are, I will not say in a degraded condition, 
for that would not, in any sense, apply to them, unless where, 
by their own bad habits, they may have degraded themselves ; 
but they are in a very low condition, and extremely ignorant and 
servile. They rarely, as with us, live in the house of their 
employers, but either in cottages on the farm or in a neighboring 
village. They are, usually, comfortably clad, in this respect 
contrasting most favorably with the mechanics and manufac- 
turers in the cities and large tov/ns; but they are, in general, 
very poorly fed. Their wages, compared with the wages of 
labor in the United States, are very low. The cash wages paid 
to them seldom equals the cash wages paid to laborers with us, 
and our laborers, in addition to their wages in money, have their 
board ; but the English laborers are obliged to subsist themselves, 
with an occasional allowance, in some instances, of beer, in hay- 
ing or harvesting. The division of labor among them is quite 
particular — a ploughman being always a ploughman, and almost 
inseparable from his horses ; a ditcher, a ditcher ; a shepherd, a 
shepherd only : the consequence of this is that what they do, 
they do extremely well. Their ploughing, sowing, drilling, and 
ditching or draining, are executed with an admirable neatness 
and exactness ; indeed, the lines of their work could not be more 
true and straight than they usually arc, if they were measured 
with a marked scale, inch by inch. They speak of ploughing 
and drilHng or ridging by the inch or the half inch ; and the 
width of the furrow slice, or the depth of the furrow, or the dis- 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 41 

tances of the drills from each other, will be found to correspond, 
witli remarkable precision, to the measurement designed. But 
they appear totally destitute of invention, and have, evidently, 
little skill or ingenuity when called upon to apply themselves to 
a work different from that to which they have been accustomed. 
Their gait is very slow ; and they seem, to me, to grow old 
quite early. The former circumstance explained itself to me 
when I examined and lifted the shoes v/hich they are accustomed 
to wear, and which, when, in addition to being well charged 
with iron, they gather the usual amount of clay which adheres 
to them in heavy soils, furnish at least some reason why, like an 
Alexandrine verse, "they drag their slow length along." There 
are occasional instances of extraordinarily good management 
where they are enabled to accumulate small sums ; but in no 
case, under the best exertions, can they make, from the wages 
of labor, any thing like a provision for their old age and decay. 

They are little given to change situations, and many of them, 
both men and women, live and die in the same service. Several 
instances have come under my observation of thirty, thirty-five, 
and forty years' reputable service ; and many where persons, even 
upon the most limited means, have brought U]) largo families of 
children without any parochial assistance. Bnt, in this case, 
tiiey are all workers; the children are put to some sort of service 
as soon as they are able to drive the rooks from the corn, and no 
drones are suffered in the hive. I visited one laborer's cottage, 
to which I was carried by the farmer himself, vv'ho was desirous 
of showing me, as he said, one of the best examples, witiiia his 
knowledge, of that condition of life. The house, though very 
small, w^as extremely neat and tidy ; the Bible lay upon the 
shelf without an unbroken cobweb over its covers ; the dressers 
were covered with an unusual quantity of crockery, sullicient to 
furnish a table for a large party — a kind of accumulation which. 
I was told, was very common; and their pardonable vanity runs 
i'l this way, as, in higher conditions of life, we see the same 
j)assion exhibiting itself in the accumulation of family plate. 
The man and. woman were laborers, greatly esteemed for their 
good conduct, and had both of them been in the same service 
more than forty years. I asked them if, in the course of that 
time, they had not been able to lay by some small store of money 
ro make them comfortable in tiieir old age. I could not have 
4* 



X. 



42 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

surprised them more by any question which I could have pro- 
posed. They replied, that it had been a constant struggle for 
them to sustain themselves, but any surplus was beyond their 
reach. I cannot help thinking that the condition is a hard one 
in which incessant and faithful labor, for so many years, will not 
enable the frugal and industrious to make some small provision 
for the period of helplessness and decay, in a country where the 
accumulations of wealth in some hands, growing out of this same 
labor, are enormous. 

To the honor of several proprietors, the kindest provision is 
made for the decayed and superannuated. In some cases, the 
wages of the laborers are continued to the end of life ; and in 
some, as I saw with great pleasure, comfortable cottages are pro- 
vided for the old and infirm : they have their rent and fuel with- 
out charge, and a regular stipend as long as they live. This was 
the case at the seat of the late distinguished farmer, the Earl of 
Leicester, formerly Mr. Coke ; and likewise on the estates of the 
Duke of Devonshire, where even the old schoolmaster of the vil- 
lage is pensioned, and has a house and a liberal allowance pro- 
vided for him. Several other instances have come under my 
observation, where the superannuated and decayed laborers were 
kindly provided for and received a pension adequate to their 
comfortable support. This is as it should be. In every just 
community the rights of honest labor ought to be respected and 
secured. I confess it would be far better for them to be able to 
provide for themselves than to be dependent upon the precarious 
bounty either of individuals or the public; but I should be un- 
willing to overlook any act of justice or honor. It is obvious 
that the prospect of a supply from the bounty of the landlord 
can only apply to those who are in the direct employment of the 
landlord, and not to those who serve the tenant farmer, whose 
situation and permanency, where the lease of the farm is only 
for the year, are always, to a degree, doubtful. 

It cannot be denied that those who labor with us are alto- 
gether a superior class of men to the English laborers ; I refer, 
of course, to the natives of the country, A considerable portion 
of our labor is now performed by foreigners, who, when they 
unne sobriety and frugality with faithful industry, are sure of 
good treatment and success ; indeed, I have known several 
instances of laboring men, and some of them in my own employ- 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 43 

ment, who, by good conduct, have supported themselves, and 
have accumulated, after a few years' service, their four and five 
hundred dollars and upwards, that is, their eighty and their hun- 
dred pounds — an acquisition which, in England, a laboring man 
would not dream of as the result of his labor, sooner than he 
would dream of receiving a pension of the same amount from 
the government. With us the laborer is vastly better paid than 
in England. With us the laborer always is, or always may be, 
the owner of the house in which he lives, and of as much land 
as he chooses to cultivate. Here the cottager is always a mere 
tenant, subject to the pleasure of his landlord ; and, though there 
are many cases where allotments of small portions of land are 
granted them for a garden spot, and for the obtaining of some 
small supplies for their families, yet there are many where no 
indulgence of this sort is allowed, not even so much as a cabbage 
yard. The laborer here is doomed to remain in the condition in 
which he is born — he cannot rise above it. The provision for 
the education of the children of the laborers is, in most parts of 
England, extremely limited and meagre. There are some 
national schools, and there are, in many places, schools estab- 
lished and supported by the liberality of the landlords, for the 
benefit of the laborers in their own villages, and on their own 
farms. Sunday schools are likewise kept up in all the parishes 
which I have visited; and I should be happy, if it were allowed 
me, to adorn my page with the names of some noble women, 
who, with a benevolence truly maternal, take a deep interest in 
these institutions, and generously support them, and, better than 
that, personally superintend them. These are bright examples. 
In one case, at a small country village, on a Sunday, 1 saw more 
than four hundred of these children, cleanly and plainly dressed, 
entering the parish church, and taking their seats together, be- 
having with the most exemplary propriety. When they lifted 
up their voices in the solemn chants of the church, and their 
gentle and shrill tones were heard above all the rest, I could not 
help lifting up my own heart to God in thanksgiving, that the 
highest truths of religion can be taken in by the humblest minds; 
that here was at work an instrument of their elevation, which 
no human power could forbid ; that here they were taught to 
recognize the dignity of their moral nature ; and that there is 
one place, where all earthly distinctions betray their insignifi- 



44 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

cancc, and every human being may, on equal terms and with 
equal confidence, invoke a common and a universal Father. 
This school was entirely supported by and under the care of a 
noble woman, who, to the highest distinctions of rank, education, 
fashion, and fortune, adds the far higher attributes of a deep 
sense of religious duty, and an earnest desire to be useful. 

The Sunday schools do not, every where, confine themselves 
to religious instruction, but reading, writing, and the elements 
of arithmetic, are also taught, because, in many cases, the chil- 
dren of the poor are kept so constantly at labor as to have no 
other opportunity of getting this instruction. The education 
given them is of a very limited character, and does not extend 
beyond reading, writing, aiid the first principles of arithmetic, 
exclusive of religious instruction. The British and foreign 
schools, which are established by aid from the government — 
which measures its bounty by what may be raised by private 
subscription in any parish or village — require the catechism of 
the established church to be taught, and the attendance of the 
children at the church, under the penalty of exclusion from the 
school. The National School Society allows the attendance of 
the children at such church as the parents choose ; but the cate- 
chism of the established church, and no other, is allowed to be 
taught in their schools. The schools supported by the liberality 
of the dissenters are, comparatively, few ; and in most of these, 
without doubt, the same interest is active, and the same influ- 
ences are at work, to attach their children to tbe particular sect 
by whose patronage the school is established and sustained. I 
speak now of England. I am not yet able to speak of the con- 
dition of things in Scotland, although it is constantly boasted of 
that the education of the Scotch laborer is always provided for, 
and that the Scotch laborer, in point of instruction, is far superior 
to the English. This remains for me to see. 

The condition of the laborers in this country is a subject of 
such deep concern to the community, on the ground of pecu- 
niary profit as well as of philanthropy and justice, that I shall, in 
the course of my inquiries, revert again to it. I do not feel that 
as yet I am sufficiently well-informed to speak with much con- 
fidence on the subject ; but I shall not leave it without some 
further remarks. The common wages of farm labor vary, for 
men, from six shillings to twelve shillings per week ; but I think 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 45 

a fair average would be eight to nine shillings sterling. A shil- 
ling may be reckoned at twenty-four cents, so that the monthly 
wages for a man may be put down at eight dollars and sixty- 
four cents. This is the whole, where labor is paid for in money, 
excepting, as a matter of kindness, the farmer generally brings 
the coals for his laborer. There are cases, too, in wliich the 
farmer stipulates to supply his wheat to the laborer at a fixed 
price, which is to be unaffected by any changes in the market. 
Six shillings, only, a week are reported to be paid in some 
places, but I have met with no case less than eight shillings and 
sixpence a week. 

It may bo interesting to sonic of ray readers to have a more 
particular account of the wages and condition of the labor- 
ers, and for that reason I will give some statements of their 
condition in that part of the country where wages are paid in 
kind. 

In the neighborhood of Haddingdon, in East Lothian, I vis- 
ited a laborer's cottage, being one in a range of six cottages, in a 
district of country highly cultivated and improved, and present- 
ing some of the finest examples of agricultural improvement 
which I have ever seen. The wife, a very tidy and civil woman, 
about forty years of age, v^'as at home ; her husband and daugh- 
ter laboring in the field. This was a very good specimen of a 
neat cottage, and its inmates had passed the greater part of their 
lives in it. It had no other floor but the hard ground ; and two 
beds were fixed in the wall, like sailors' berths on board ship. 
The shelves were covered with crockery ; and a Bible, and a 
few religious and other tracts lay upon the mantel-piece. A 
cake made of pea-flour and barley-flour was baking over the 
fire, of which I was asked to eat, but the taste of which did 
very little towards quickening my appetite. There was, besides 
the one in which I was, a small room for coal and lumber, 
where, in case of great emergency, a lodging might be made up. 
One of her neighbors in the same block, with no larger accom- 
modations, had eight children to provide for. Two grown-up 
daughters, with one smaller one, occupied one bed ; the parents, 
with one child, occupied the other ; the two grown-up sons slept 
in the lumber-room or coal-house. There is often much closer 
lodging than this. The husband of the woman, in whose cot- 
tage I was, was a ploughman, and likewise a bondager — a species 



46 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

of service or contract which requires him to furnish a female 
laborer, at tenpence per day in ordinary Avork, and one shilling 
per day in harvest, whenever her services are required. If he 
has not a wife or daughter who will answer this purpose, he 
must keep a woman in his house to be always in readiness when 
required. His wages were — 

18 bolls of oats, at 4 bushels per boll, ... 72 bushels. 

2 bolls of peas, " "''... 8 •' 

4i bolls of barley, " " " . . . 18 " 
and £1 for " lint " — or shirts. 

This payment of wages in kind, if the rate is fairly fixed, is 
certainly an equitable mode. Its effect upon the laborers, as in 
this case, as they themselves have grain to sell, is to make them 
the advocates of high prices, and, consequently, the friends of 
those restrictive measures by which foreign competition in the 
grain market is prevented. The employer likewise keeps a cow 
for the laborer ; or if he has no cow, an allowance is made to 
him of five or six pounds in money. He is likewise allowed 
1000 square yards of ground for potatoes, which the farmer 
ploughs and manures for him ; but which he cultivates in extra 
hours. For the rent of his house he gives twenty-one days' 
work in harvest, if required ; but should it happen that only 
twelve or fourteen are required, it is accepted as an equivalent. 

For the woman's work he receives a fixed amount per day, 
whenever she is employed ; and for her six months' service in the 
year he pays her three pounds. For the other six months he 
pays her nothing more than her board and some clothes. The 
farmer brings his coals for him, which he purchases at a small 
sum, being small coals, here called pan-wood. The value of 
three shillings and sixpence in coals will serve him through 
seven weeks in winter. Seven loads (one-horse loads, I suppose) 
of coals are purchased at the quarries for three shillings and six- 
pence. The farmer's shoes cost him ten shillings, and one pair 
will last him eighteen months. His daughter's working shoes 
last her a year : this is exclusive of her Sunday's shoes. In 
most parts of Scotland, the women, in the summer season, wear 
only their natural sandals and hose, which have, indeed, the ad- 
vantages of being easily washed, and easily repaired ; but in this 
part of Scotland they form the exception of wearing shoes and 



AGUICULTUIIAL POPULATION. 



47 



Stockings the whole year. Their living consists of bread made 
of barley and peas, ineal or oaten porridge and milk, and pota- 
toes ; and they generally have a pig. They cannot, of course, 
lay up any money ; and she added, in her own pleasant dialect, 
that "the lassies have muckle sair work in harvest." They 
depend on the sale of their surplus grain for what little money 
they need. I will do justice to her modest merit, and say, to 
the shame of thousands rolling in unstinted luxury, that she 
spoke of her condition as comfortable, and expressed strongly 
and religiously her contentment. 

The wages paid in the county of Northumberland, where the 
Scotch system of farming is carried to a high degree of perfec- 
tion, is as follows, as given by several gentlemen, familiar 
with the subject, to the parliamentary committee : — 



FIRST EXAMPLE. 


36 bushels of oats, 


24 lbs. of wool, 


24 " " barley. 


A cow's keep for a year. 


12 " '• peas, 


Cottage and garden, 


3 " " wheat, 


Coals carrying from the pit, 


3 " '• rye. 


£4 in cash. 


36 to 40 " potatoes. 





SECOND EXAMPLE. 



10 bushels of wheat, 
30 " " oats. 
10 " " barley, 
10 " '• rye, 
10 '• " peas, 
A cow's keep for a year, 



800 yds. of land for potatoes. 
Cottage and garden. 
Coals led, 
£3 10 s. in cash, 
2 bushels of barley in lieu of 
hens. 



THIRD EXAMPLE. 



36 bushels of oats, 
24 '' '• barley, 

12 " •' peas, 
6 " " wheat, 
1000 yds. of land for potatoes, 



A cow's keep, 
House and garden. 
Coals led, 
£5 in cash. 



48 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The following, whic.h is a specimen of the half-year's account 
between a large farmer and one of his laborers in a part of North- 
umberland, is worthy of observation: — 

Dr. to 

£. s. d. 
Jane Thompson, (the bondager,) 121^ days at lOd., .513 
Catherine Thompson, (a child,) 24 harvest days at Is. 1 4 

Do., 73 J days at 5d., 1 10 7 J 

Elizabeth Thompson, (a younger child,) 7^ days, ..019^ 
Isabella Thompson, (a dress-maker at other times,) ^ 

35f days at Is., ) 
Do., 20 harvest days at 2s. 3d., . . . 2 5 

Wife, 9 harvest days, 103 

His old father, 52 days, 3 18 

John Thompson's half-year's cash, 2 10 



£19 6 8* 



This account, it will be seen, with the exception of the last 
item, does not include any portion of the laborer's own service, 
but that of his family only. The difference in the price of 
harvest work at different periods, as between one shilling and 
two shillings and threepence, is probably owing to labor becom- 
ing more scarce, on account of the general ripeness of the crop, 
or the hurrying state of the weather. 

The Scotch laborers seemed to me, from a very limited obser- 
vation, strongly attached to their employers. On one farm, where 
I had the pleasure of visiting, one of the laborers had been in 
the employment of the same family forty years, and another 
sixty ; to each of whom, although their labor now was of very 
little value, the farmer continued the same rate of wages, which 
they had in early life. This indeed would seem to be no more 
than just, that the honest laborer, whose life had been spent in 
the service of another man, should not be turned adrift in his old 
age ; but, alas ! how rare is justice ! 

Of the extraordinary frugality with which some persons in 
humble life live, even where prices are high, I may give an 



* Parliamentary Report on Employment of Women and Cliildren in Agri- 
culture. 1843. p. 297. 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 49 

example, which came under my observation. In Arbroath, near 
the magnificent rnins of tlie ancient abbey of Arbroath, I heard 
the movements of a hand-loom, and I took the liberty, with due 
ceremony, of going in. A middle-aged Scotch woman, of pleas- 
ing appearance and neatly dressed, was weaving. I asked her 
how much she was able to earn. She replied that if she rose 
early, at five o'clock, and worked all day through the week, after 
paying for the use of the loom and the cost of winding her 
spools, her week's work would amount to four shillings. She 
received n© parish assistance. She paid three pounds sixteen 
shillings for the rent of her house. Her fuel cost her ninepence 
per week ; and out of the remainder — less than two shillings — 
she had to support and clothe herself and an aged mother, who 
was very infirm, and incapable of helping herself. What the 
support that either of the poor creatures could have under such 
circumstances must be left to conjecture. The woman spoke of 
her circumstances as being difficult, but she made no complaint, 
and presented an example of true Christian philosophy, which 
would have done honor to a superior education and the highest 
condition in life. 

In all parts of the country, women are more or less employed 
on the farms, and in some parts in large numbers ; I have fre- 
quently counted thirty, fifty, and many more in a field at a time, 
both in hoeing turnips and in harvesting. I have found them, 
likewise, engaged in various other services — in pulling weeds, in 
picking stones, in unloading and treading grain, in tending thresh- 
ing-machines, in digging potatoes and pulling and topping tur- 
nips, in tending cattle, in leading out dung, and in carrying lime- 
stone and coals. Indeed, there is hardly any menial service to 
which they are not accustomed ; and all notions of their sex 
seem out of the ciuestion whenever their labor is wanted or can 
be applied. The wages of women are commonly sixpence and 
eightpence, and they seldom exceed tenpence a day, excepting 
in harvest, when they are as high as a shilling. The hours of 
labor for the men are usually from six o'clock, A. M., to six. 
P. M., with an interval of an hour for breakfast and an hour for 
dinner. The women rarely come before eight o'clock, and quit 
labor at six, with the usual indulgence for dinner. Many of the 
laborers walk two and three miles to their work, and return at 
night. Their meals are taken in the fields, and in the most 
simple form. The dinner is often nothing more than bread. 
5 



50 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

In the season of harvest, immense numbers of Irish come over 
10 assist in the labor, and this presents almost the only oppor- 
tunity which they have, in the course of the year, of earning a 
little money to pay the rent of their cabins and potato patches. 
Nothing can exceed the destitution and squalidness in which they 
are seen ; starved, ragged, and dirty beyond all description, with 
the tatters hanging about them like a few remaining feathers 
upon a plucked goose. At their first coming, they are compara- 
tively feeble and inefficient ; but after a week's comfortable 
feeding, they recover strength,, increasing some pounds in weight, 
and, if they are allowed to perform their work by the piece, they 
accomplish a great deal. 

I found in one case on two farms — which, though under two 
tenants, might be considered as a joint concern — more than four 
hundred laborers employed during the harvests, a large proportion 
of whom were women, but not exclusively Irish. The average 
wages paid the men in this case was one shilling sterling (or 
twenty-four cents) per day and their food, which was estimated 
at about ninepence (or about eighteen cents) per day. Their 
living consisted of oatmeal-porridge and a small quantity of sour 
milk or buttermilk for breakfast ; a pound of wheaten bread, 
and a pint and a half of beer at ditmer ; and at night, a supper 
resembling the breakfast, or twopence in money in-lieu of it. I 
was curious to know how so many people were lodged at night. 
In some cases, they throw themselves down under the stacks, or 
upon some straw in the sheds, or out-buildings of the farm ; but 
in the case to which I refer above, I was shown into the cattle- 
stalls and stables, the floors of which were littered with straw ; 
and here the men's coats, and the women's caps and bonnets, upon 
the walls, indicated that it was occupied by both parties promis- 
cuously. This was indeed the fact. Each person, as far as 
possible, was supplied with a blanket ; and these were the whole 
accommodations and the whole support. This was not a singular 
instance. I am unwilling to make any comments upon such 
facts as these. They speak for themselves. They are matters 
of general custom, and seemed to excite no attention. I do not 
refer to them as matter of reproach to the employers, who w^ere 
persons of respectable character and condition, and whose fami- 
lies were distinguished for their refinement. But it presents one 
among many instances in which habit and custom reconcile us 
to masy things which would otherwise offend us; and lead us 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 51 

to view some practices, utterly unjustifiable in themselves, with 
a degree of complacency or indifference ; and as unalterable, 
because they have been so long established. I believe there is 
only one part of the United States where any thing resembling 
such a condition of things prevails, or would be permitted ; and 
there only among a class of beings whose claims to humanity 
seem not very well established in all minds, and whose degrada- 
tion, on account of their complexion, appears absolutely hopeless. 
Bat, even here, this indiscriminate consorting is not common ; 
nor would it be permitted by any respectable planter. 

This condition of things should certainly save this country 
from the reproach, if it be one, which some English tourists are 
disposed to attribute to American manners — that of treating the 
sex with too much courtesy and deference. I cannot bring 
myself, however, to view the subject with any lightness what- 
ever. My confident conviction is, that the virtue of a community 
depends on nothing more than on the character of the women. 
In proportion as they are improved, and treated with deference 
on account of their sex, the women are brought to respect them- 
selves, and the character of the men is directly improved ; char- 
acter itself becomes valuable to both parties. But in proportion 
as the condition of women is degraded, and they are considered 
and treated as mere animals, self-respect is not known among 
them ; character is of no value ; and the moral condition of such 
a class, or rather its improvement, is absolutely without hope. 
Nor is it without its pernicious influences, which must be too 
obvious to require to be pointed out, upon the classes in the com- 
munity above them. Much fault as some persons have been 
pleased to find with the deference paid to the sex in the United 
States, I should be very sorry to see it in the smallest measure 
abated. I do not believe, taken as a whole, there is a more 
virtuous population upon earth, than are the women of New 
England and the Middle States; and nowhere is there a greater 
decency and propriety of conversation and manners. I speak of 
these portions of the country in particnlar, because with them I 
am intimately acquainted, and have a right to speak with confi- 
dence ; but I have no reason to say that the same respectability 
of character does not prevail in other parts of the United States. 

I do not claim for my country any thing like an immaculate 
condition of society ; very far from it : but I do claim for them 
a highly-improved moral condition ; and have no hesitation in 



52 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

saying, that in most of our country villages prostitution is un- 
known, and an illegitimate child is a comparatively rare occur- 
rence. I add with equal confidence, that under the influence 
of our free schools and universal education, and the disinterested 
and philanthropic exertions among all sects for the religious 
education of the young in Sunday schools, the beneficial and 
ameliorating results fully equal every reasonable expectation. 
This comes of the value of character, and the lessons early incul- 
cated upon them to respect themselves as women. I would, if 
possible, strengthen this sentiment ; and therefore would in no 
department of life render less prominent the distinctive barriers 
between the sexes, t In all my intercourse with society in the 
United States, and with opportunities as large as an}^ man of 
observing all classes among them in the various conditions of 
life, I have never known an instance of a woman going to a 
public bar for drink, or sitting down in a public bar-room with 
men, or alone, to regale herself. The ale-houses and gin-shops 
in England are as much accustomed by women as by men, and 
the results of such practices are exactly what might be expected 
— an extreme vulgarity of manners, and a large amount of 
drunkenness among the lower class of women. What, as a 
matter of course, comes with it need not be told ; but the records 
of the police courts leave no one at a loss. — ■" 

My observations in this case must be understood as applying 
solely to the lowest class : these constitute a very numerous por- 
tion. They apply likewise mainly to cities and large towns. 
In respect to the deportment of the middle and the highest 
classes — with whom my intercourse, through their kindness, 
has been familiar and extensive — nothing in manners or conver- 
sation can be farther removed from that which is vulgar or 
offensive ; and for propriety and the highest degree of refine- 
ment, nothing can be more exemplary and delightful. 

In districts strictly agricultural, the low rate of wages does not 
admit of much expenditure in this way ; and, if there are in- 
dulgences, they must be at home in the village ale-houses, and 
only occasional. For a considerable portion of the year, the 
farm laborers are not allowed any beer ; in the haying and 
harvesting, their allowance seldom exceeds one pint and a half, 
which, as it is small beer, cannot be considered excessive. I 
could not learn that any allowance of whisky or spirit is ever 
given them by their employers, or that it is ever carried by them 



X 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. Oo 

into the fields. The drinking, in this country, with the lower 
and laboring classes of people, seems, in a great degree, confined 
to the licensed houses, of which, certainly, there is nowhere 
any want. In passing through the village of Glossop, in Derby- 
shire, a modern and an exceedingly well-built village, in a dis- 
tance, I should judge, of less than three fourths of a mile, I 
counted, as I passed along on the box of the coach, thirty-five 
licensed retail shops, most of which were probably for the sale, 
among other things, of intoxicating liquors. Indeed, the number 
of licensed retailers in every village in England is quite remark- 
able, and would seem, in many cases, to include almost every 
fourth house. "^ 

I am not disposed to object to the employment of women in 
some kinds of agricultural labor. The employment of them in 
indiscriminate labor is liable to the most serious objections. 
Nothing can be more animating, and, in its way, more beau- 
tiful, than, on a fine, clear day, when the golden and waving har- 
vest is ready for the sickle, to see, as I have several times seen, a 
party of more than a hundred women and girls entering the 
field, cutting the grain, or binding it up after the reapers. In 
cultivating the turnips, they are likewise extremely expert. In 
tending and making hay, and in various other agricultural labors, 
they carry their end of the yoke even ; but in loading and lead- 
ing out dung, and especially, as I have seen them, in carrying 
broken limestone in baskets on their heads, to be put into the 
kilns, and in bearing heavy loads of coal from the pits, I have 
felt that their strength was unnaturally taxed, and that, at least 
in these cases, they were quite out of "woman's sphere." I 
confess, likewise, that my gallantry has often been severely 
tried, when I have seen them at the inns acting as ostlers, bring- 
ing out the horses and assisting in changing the coach team, 
while the coachman went into the inn to try the strength of 
the ale. ""^ 

As far as health is concerned, the out-door employment of 
women is altogether favorable. As far as virtue or moral purity 
is concerned, out-door employment in itself is not more objec- 
tionable than employment within doors. Indeed, from the 
inquiries which have been made into this matter, and the elabo- 
rate reports that have been given to the government, it does not 
appear that the agricultural districts, where the custom of out- 
door employment for women prevails, are more immoral than the 
5* 



54 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

manufacturing districts. But the natural effect of such employ- 
ment upon women is to render them negligent of their persons. 
and squalid and dirty in their appearance ; and with this neglect 
of person, they cease to be treated with ai>y deference by the 
other sex, and lose all respect for themselves. Personal neglect 
and uncleanliness are followed by their almost invariable con- 
comitants, mental and moral impurity and degradation. The 
working likewise promiscuously with men, which is done con- 
tinually, must expose them to rude jests, and to language and 
manners which, among the lower class of men, are too often 
grossly indecent and immoral. In all other respects, many kinds 
of out-door agricultural employment must be, and is, as it is 
admitted, favorable to health and vigor. The general health and 
vigor of sucii women, so many hours engaged in reasonable exer- 
cise in the open air, contrast most favorably with the effemi- 
]iacy, debility, and early decay of those who are confined in 
heated and close manufactories, or in sedentary employments 
within doors. Nor, in point of moral conduct, as far as mere 
occupation is concerned, is there any reason to suppose that the 
agricultural classes would suffer in comparison with the manu- 
facturing classes, or with the host of young women in cities, 
employed in various trades and in-door occupations. We have 
few instances, in the free states, of ;)vomen being employed in 
field labor. The women in Wethersfield, Connecticut, have for 
years been accustomed to the cultivation of onions, doing every 
thing for the crop, excepting ploughing and manuring the land ; 
even to preparing it for the market. Tiicy certainly have 
suffered no evil, but, on the contrary, have derived much benefit, 
from the occupation. Nowhere, it is believed, can men, depend- 
ent upon their own exertions for support, find wives better able 
to manage their household affairs, more frugal, more industrious, 
or more tidy, than among the industrious young women of Weth- 
ersfield. It must seem strange to many persons if I also add, as 
I know I may with truth, that many of these young women are 
persons of good education, and to a degree, allowing for the 
retired condition of society in which they have been brought up, 
even of refined manners : so totally diflerent, indeed, are the 
conditions of the laboring classes in England and the United 
States. In truth, no comparison can properly be instituted be- 
tween them. Jn general, among the laboring classes in England, 
their low condition, their ignorance, and want of education, and 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 55 

the almost absolute impossibility of rising above the estate in 
which they arc born, render them, to a great degree, reckless 
and improvident. Character becomes consequently of far less 
importance than it would otherwise be. There are wanting, 
consequently, the motives to tliat self-respect, which constitutes 
the highest security of virtue ; and under such a condition of 
things, it is not surprising to find a laxity of morals, which pro- 
duces swarms of illegitimate children. This is attended by the 
usual consequence — an absence, on the part of the pSrents, of 
that sense of obligation to support and provide for their oflspring, 
which is to be found in its purity and strength only in legal 
wedlock. 

There are two practices \in regard to agricultural labor, not 
universal, by any means, but prevailing in some parts of Eng- 
land and Scotland, which I may notice. The first is called the 
" gang system." In some places, owing to the size of farms being 
greatly extended., cottages being suffered to fall into decay and ruin, 
laborers have been congregated in villages, where have prevailed 
all the evils, physical and moral, which are naturally to be expected 
from a crowded population, shoved into small and inconvenient 
habitations, and subjected to innumerable privations. In this case, 
the farmer keeps in permanent and steady employment no more 
laborers than are absolutely required for the constant and uninter- 
rupted operations of the farm ; and relies upon the obtaining of a 
large number of hands, or a gang, as it is termed, whenever any 
great job is to be accomplished, that he may be enabled to eftect 
it at once and at the smallest expense. Under these circum- 
stances, he applies to a gang-master, as he is termed, who contracts 
for its execution, and through whom the poor laborers must find 
employment, if they find it at all ; and upon whose terms they 
must work, or get no work. The gang-master has them then 
completely in his power, taking care to provide well for himself 
in his own commissions, which must, of course, be deducted 
from the wages of the laborers, and subjecting them, at pleasure, 
to the most despotic and severe conditions. It is not optional 
with these poor creatures to say whether they will work or not. 
but whether they will work or die — they have no other resource 
— change their condition they cannot — contract separately for 
their labor they cannot, because the farmer confines his contracts 
to the gang-master ; and we may infer from the Reports of the 



56 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Commissioners, laid before the government, that the system is 
one of oppression, cruelty, and pkmder, and in every respect 
leading to gross immoralities. The distance to Avhich these 
laborers go is often as much as five or six miles, and this usually 
on foot, and to return at night. Children and girls are compelled 
to go these distances, and consequently must rise very early in 
the morning and reach home at a very late hour at night. Girls 
and boys and young men and women work indiscriminately 
together.* When the distance to which they go for work is ten 
miles, they are sent in carts. When the distances are great, 
they occasionally pass the night at the place of work, and then 
lodge in barns, or any where else, indiscriminately together. ^To_ 
talk of morals in such a ease i« idleJ One of the gang-masters, 
who has been an overseer seventeen years, gives it as his testi- 
mony, under oath, " that seventy out of a hundred of the girls 
become prostitutes," and the general account given of the opera- 
tions of the system shows an utter profligacy of mind in their 
general conversation and manners, when morals must follow of 
course. If they go in the morning and stay only a little while, 
on account of rain, or other good cause, they are paid nothing. 
The day is divided into quarters, but no smaller fractions of 
time are in any case allowed to them. Then the persons em- 
ployed are required, in many cases, to deal with the gang-master 
for the supplies they receive, in payment for their labor. The 
results of such a system are obvious. The work being taken by 
the piece, the gang-master presses them to their utmost strength. 
The fragments of days, in which work is done and not paid for 
to the laborers, are all to the benefit of the gang-master, who, 
in such case, gets a large amount of work done at no cost. 
These poor wretches, being unable to contract for themselves, or 
to get any work but through him, he of course determines the 
price of the labor, and, one may be sure, puts it down to the 
lowest point. But his advantages do not end here, for there is 
no doubt that he gets a high advance upon the goods which he 
requires them to purchase of him, and thus their wages are 
reduced still lower. No just or benevolent mind, it would seem, 
can look upon any such system in all its details, as given in the 
Commissioners' Report, but with a profound sense of its injus- 
tice, oppression, and immorality. 

One of the gang-masters says, " If they go to work two hours 



\ 



\ 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION, 57 

and a half, it is a quarter of a day. If they go a long walk, 
seven miles or so, and it comes on a wet day, there is the walk 
all for nothing. Children of the ages of four, five, and six, work 
in the gangs. They earn 9 d. a day, the big ones ; the small, 
4d. ; children of seven years old, 3 d. a day." " It is the ruin of 
a girl," says a parent, one of the laborers, " to be in such a place 
as that." "My children's hands are so blistered," says another 
of the parents, '-pulling turnips, that I have been obliged to tie 
them up every night this winter. Pulling turnips blisters the 
hands very much — they are obliged to pull them up — they 
must not take turnip crones (a sort of fork) for fear of damaging 
the turnips." 

" The gangsman, or leader," says another witness, " pays the 
wages of all employed in the gang, and, of course, makes his 
profit entirely from their labor, as the farmer takes care that the 
gang system shall not cost him more than the common system 
of individual laborers. The leader's profit, as I have heard, is 
sometimes 15 s. per day. The assembling of twenty-five and 
thirty women and children and lads, of all ages and conditions 
and characters, together, has a most fatal eftect upon their morals 
and conduct." Another respectable and reverend witness says. 
" The gang is superintended by a lazy, idle fellow, of profligate 
manners and a dishonest character — such, at all events, are the 
characters of two in my own neighborhood." 

I will not dwell upon the evils of a management of this kind. 
It is obvious what a power such a man, the employer of these 
people, has over them ; and it is as easy to infer what is likely 
to be the character of young persons, more especially, placed under 
his control. When are men to be just ? and when are men, who 
live upon the hard labor of others, and who hold not merely their 
physical but their moral destiny in their hands, to feel their 
responsibleness as Christians and as men ? 

The most melancholy circumstance in the case is given in the 
testimony of one witness, a clergyman, who says, " that he fears 
the gang system will and must increase, especially upon large 
farms." It would not be unreasonable to fear that God would 
send blight and mildew upon fields where human life and virtue 
are thus sacrificed, and decency and morals thrown to the winds ; 
and where the crops are watered with the tears of these wretched 
victims of injustice and oppression. 



58 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

There is another system of employment, which prevails in 
Northumberland and in some parts of Scotland, to which I have 
already alluded : this is called the bondage system, but it does 
not appear to me liable to the strong objections which the name 
would seem to imply. In this case, the laborer, when he con- 
tracts for his services, makes a condition that he will, as may be 
required, furnish a woman as an additional laborer ; and he 
receives so mnch per day for her labor, according to the number 
of days she may be employed. In such case, if he has not a 
wife or daughter to supply the place, he engages some young 
woman who lives in his family, and to whom he pays such a 
sum by the year as may be agreed upon, in money, clothing, or 
otherwise, and she lives in his family as one of the family for 
the whole year. There are few forms of servitude which are not 
liable to abuses, and the greater the state of dependence and 
weakness, so much increased is the liability to abuse ; but where 
the employer is a conscientious and just man, such a contract 
may be mutually advantageous. 

In parts of Scotland, what is called the Bothie system prevails, 
and the support of the laborers is a very summary process. The 
wages are paid in money or kind, as may be agreed upon ; and 
the laborers, if single men, are furnished with a room, fuel, and 
bedding ; with two pecks of oatmeal on Monday morning, and 
with a daily allowance of new or of sour milk — occasionally 
they may have beer and bread for dinner instead of the porridge. 
Nothing more, however, is done for them. They prepare their 
porridge for themselves in such way as they choose ; but this 
comprehends the whole of their living. It would not be true to 
say that this diet is insufficient for the support of a laboring man. 
as it must be admitted that few laborers exhibit firmer health, or 
more muscular vigor, or really perform more work, than many of 
these men. This mode of living would, however, I think, be a 
little too primitive for the New England taste, though on matters 
of taste we are told there is to be no dispute. Having myself 
visited a Scotch Bothie, I cannot, how mnch soever the economy 
of the arrangements may be praised, much commend the style 
of the housekeeping. Indeed, it is not difficult to infer that 
where young men at service are turned into a hovel together, 
and without any one to look after their lodging or prepare their 
meals, the style of living cannot have the advantages even of the 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 59 

wigwam of a Nortli American savage ; for there, at least, there 
is a squaw to provide the food and look after the premises.* 
The wages of a Scotch laborer are about £12 sterling per year, 
and living as above ; and for a woman, as a field laborer, four 
shillings sterling per week, or about eighty-eight cents, out of 
which she provides for herself. 

The condition of labor forms, as is obvious, a most important 
element in the agriculture of a country. Human labor, indeed, 
seems far more essentially concerned in agriculture than in either 
commerce or manufactures. A few hands may manage a large 
ship, freighted with immense weaUh, and performing voyages 
which equal the circuit of the globe. A child may superintend 
a large number of spindles ; and a single power wheel sets in 
motion a vast and complicated machinery. Agriculture has 
already derived vast benefits from mechanical ingenuity, and may 
confidently anticipate from this source an immense extension of 
her power ; but there can be no question that she must, at least 
for a long time to come, continue mainly dependent upon human 
labor. The cost of labor, therefore, and the general support and 
condition of this labor, are alike interesting to the agriculturist 
and the philanthropist. 

In an old country like England, where labor is so abundant, it 
is to be expected that the rules of labor should be exact and 
stringent ; indeed, without this the management of a large farm 
would be impracticable. The women usually begin work at eight 
o'clock, and, resting an hour for dinner, they work until five, or, 
in a pressure of work, until six. The ploughman must feed and 
clean his horses at four o'clock in the morning, and at six o'clock 
the plough must be under way. At two o'clock, his horses are 
put up for the day, and he devotes himself until six o'clock to 
their cleansing and feeding, and to the care of his plough and 
harness; eight hours in the field, and the ploughing an acre of 

* Of the Bothie system, as it is called, or employment of unmarried men, 
living together in a bothie or hovel attached to the steading, it is hardly neces- 
sary to say, that a more effective means of demoralizing and brutalizing a peas- 
antry could not be devised than tliat of crowding together a parcel of young 
men, half of them perhaps strangers, Irish, or bad characters, in a hovel by them- 
selves, without even an attempt at moral superintendence. This is one of the 
worst evils that has attended the introduction of the large farm system. — 
//rti7ig"'5 Prize Essaij. 



60 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ground, being considered a full day's work. The other laborers 
begin labor at six o'clock in the moruing, and work until six in 
the afternoon, with the intermission of half an hour for breakfast 
and an hour for dinner. No laborer leaving his employment 
before the termination of his engagement, without good and 
sufficient reason, can recover any portion of his wages ; and no 
employer, without equal reason, can dismiss a laborer before the 
end of the term for which he is engaged. In general, however, 
laborers continue for years in the same employment, especially 
married men ; and it is extremely interesting, speaking well both 
for master and servant, to see men and women who have remained 
in the same service twenty, thirty, forty, and even fifty years, 
and their children coming forward to take their places. In such 
cases, they become, as it were, an integral part of the establish- 
ment, and both parties are equally benefited. 

In some parts of the country, as in Lincolnshire for example, 
twice a year, in the spring and autumn, are held, in some princi- 
pal market towns, statute fairs, vulgarly called " Statties," where 
young men and women wanting service assemble, and persons 
wanting laborers or servants go there to supply their wants. 
Such arrangements have certainly many advantages ; but they 
have also their evils, and the assembling of large numbers of 
men and women, in such cases, with, not unfrequently, the usual 
accompaniments of a Fair, are said to lead to much dissolute- 
ness and dissipation. This is to be expected. This arrange- 
ment serves to average the rate of wages, and must be to all 
parties a great saving of time. In the present condition of 
female labor in the United States, there could be none but the 
wortliless to offer themselves in this way ; but with respect to 
young men seeking employment, there would be great advan- 
tages in having a day and place fixed in some principal town, 
when and where persons wishing for employment might be 
found by persons wishing to employ them ; and such an " Ex- 
change " might be annually held to advantage. An arrange- 
ment of this kind has often recommended itself to my mind for 
its convenience, and I have, before this, urged its adoption. 

I have endeavored, with strict regard to truth, to state what I 
understand to be the condition of the agricultural population in 
this country. Further inquiries may serve to correct or modify 
my views on this subject. I am perfectly aware how difficult it 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 61 

is for a foreigner to obtain a correct knowledge or to form a fair 
judgment of the customs and manners of any country which lie 
visits; and especially where his residence is limited, and his 
observations necessarily partial. Feeling no prejudices, and 
having no private interests or partialities in the case, other than 
those which are inseparable from an education in anotJier condi- 
tion in society, and under political institutions differing entirely 
from those which prevail here, I am desirous, above all things, to 
liold my mind open to the light of further and more exact 
inquiry. 

It does not need any long experience to learn that first impres- 
sions are not always the most correct ; and every intelligent and 
candid mind must allow that most men have some reasons 
which, to their minds, appear sufficient for what they do; that 
many customs which have prevailed for ages, however objection- 
able at first sight they may appear to us, have grown out of 
peculiar circumstances of time and place, which sanction their 
expediency at the time of their origin, if not the propriety of 
their continuance : and that, in respect to many acknowledged 
evils, it is far more easy to deplore the existence than to point 
out the remedy. While circumstances of this nature prompt to 
caution and forbearance in our judgments, they do not require 
us, at the expense of our moral sense, to regard these evils in 
any other than their true character, to palliate either their nature 
or extent, or to look upon them, under any circumstances, in 
utter despair of their removal or alleviation. Nor will they 
excuse any neglect of all proper and possible exertion to remedy 
an acknowledged evil. 

The condition of the laboring agricultural class is certainly, in 
many parts of England, exceedingly depressed ; and though in 
frequent instances it may be called comfortable, in few that I 
have seen can it be considered prosperous. Their labor is not 
extraordinarily severe ; they are by no means treated with un- 
kind ness, or, excepting through the misfortune of the ill temper 
of their employer, with severity ; they are decently clad, and 
there is a great amount of active benevolence every where at work 
to assist them, and to alleviate their distress in sickness and mis- 
fortune. But they are very poorly fed ; with many exceptions, 
they are wretchedly lodged ; their wages are inadequate to their 
comfortable support ; and their situation affords little or no 
6 



62 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

hope of improvement, — at least the power of making it better 
does not rest, where it should, with themselves. 

It is a painful, though not an unheard-of anomaly, that, in the 
midst of the greatest abundance of human food, immense num- 
bers of those by whose labor this food is produced are actually 
suffering and perishing from hunger ; that where ten millions of 
acres of improvable lands, capable of being made productive 
lands, lie uncultivated,* millions of hands, which might subdue, 
enrich, and beautify this waste, from necessity remain unem- 
ployed ; and that, in a country where the accumulations of 
wealth surpass the visions of Oriental splendor and magnificence, 
there exist, on the other hand, such contrasts of \vant, destitu- 
tion, privation, and misery, as would surpass belief and defy the 
power of the imagination, but for the support of incontrovertible 
and overwhelming evidence. Under the present institutions of 
the country, a perfect remedy is hopeless, and an alleviation of 
these evils is all which can be looked for. An entire revolution 
in the institutions of the country, in the forms of society, and in 
the condition of property, could only be effected by violence ; 
and the consequences of such a revolution it would be frightful 
to contemplate. But should a revolution occur, and the frame- 
work of society be broken up, and its elements be thrown into a 
state of chaotic confusion, what sagacity could predict the 
results, and what security is there that in any re-arrangement 
these evils would be rectified and the rights of labor any better 
protected? I say the rights of labor; for who, under any cir- 
cumstances, will presume to deny that they, by whose labor the 
earth is made to yield her fruits, and all accumulations of wealth 
are obtained, have not, indeed, in common justice, a perfect 
claim to a full share of the products of their own toil ? I care 
not what claims arbitrary and despotic power may set up ; nor 
by what laws and rules she may seek to appropriate to her own 
use or luxury much the largest portion of these products ; but I 
claim for the laborer an ample share of the fruits of his industry 
on the obvious grounds of natural right and justice, and the 
plainest principles of Christianity. 

I am not at all disposed to quarrel with any of the institutions 
of this great and enlightened country — great and enlightened, 

* Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 308. 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 63 

as a whole, beyond almost any precedent. I am not disposed, 
in any offensive form, to profess my own preferences for insti- 
tutions to which birth and education may have strongly attached 
me, founded as they are on the great principles of universal 
liberty as the birthright of every man, and of social equality as 
conformable to nature, and the only relation in which men can 
stand to their Creator, or under which they would dare to ap- 
proach him. But, to my mind, it is obvious that no great im- 
provement can take place in the character and condition of the' 
laboring population while they remain a distinct and servile class, 
without any power of rising above their condition. At present, 
the most imaginative and sanguine see no probability of their 
rising above their condition, of being any thing but laborers, or 
of belonging to any other than a servile and dependent class. 
The low stare of their wages absolutely forbids the accumula- 
tion of any property. They cannot own any of the soil which 
tliey cultivate. The houses which they occupy belong not to 
themselves, and they may at any time be turned out of them. 
They must ask leave to live, or they must take it by violence or 
plunder when they will not be suffered to live. Their only 
home is the grave. 

In a country where labor is superabundant, and the price of 
land places it utterly beyond the reach of those who have no 
means to purchase but from the scanty products of their own 
manual labor, the condition of the laborer is that of absolute 
dependence. In a condition of society where artificial ranks and 
classes exist, and where all the wealth and all the power are in 
the possession of the upper, or, as they are sometimes denom- 
inated, the favored classes, the barriers Avhich hem in the lowest 
class — without property, without power, without education, 
without even a home which they can call their own — are, of 
course, impassable. In a country where labor is scarce, where 
land is cheap and free, and where the advantages of a good edu- 
cation are offered gratuitously to all, where no arbitrary distinc- 
tions of rank exist, and every man, by the force of his own talents 
and character, may occupy that condition in society to which he 
chooses to aspire, it is obvious how different is the situation of 
the laboring portion. 

I believe it is impossible for a man who lives in a state of 
entire dependence upon others to have the spirit of a man ; and 



64 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

who, ill looking out upon the beautiful and productive earth; 
where God has placed him, is compelled to feel that there is not 
a foot of soil which, under any circumstances, he can claim for 
himself; that there is not a tree nor a shelving rock by the road 
side, where he can shelter himself and gather under his wing the 
little ones whom God may have cast upon his care, but he is 
liable to be driven away at the will of another — at the caprice 
of avarice, selfishness, pride, or unbridled power ; that the use 
of his own hands and limbs is not his own ; that he cannot, 
but at the will of another, find a spot of ground where he can 
apply them ; and that even the gushings from the rock in the 
wilderness and the manna which descends from heaven are 
intercepted in their progress to him, and doled out too often in 
reluctant and scanty measure. 

This will not be pronounced an exaggerated or colored portrait of 
the condition of the agricultural laboring population of England. 
I suppose that, with the exception of some few rights of common, 
where some miserable mud-hut has been erected, and the pos- 
sessor has a kind of allowed claim during his life, few instances 
can be found of a laborer's owning, in fee simple, a cottage, or 
so much as a rood of land. I recollect, in passing through a part 
of Derbyshire, in a region which farms the contiguity of several 
large estates, the coachman, by whose side I was seated, said to 
me, that this was the Duke of Devonshire's village, and this the 
Duke of Rutland's, and this the Duke of Norfolk's, and so on : 
and I could not help asking myself, with some sinking of heart, 
Where is the people's own village ? 

In a part of Lincolnshire, an excellent landlord and friend, dis- 
tinguished for his integrity and philanthropy, was kind enough 
to take me to visit several of his cottages, that I might see, as he 
said, some of the best examples of this kind of life. It was on a 
Sunday evening. The houses were humble, but they were neat 
and comfortable. The inhabitants of one house which we 
entered were advanced in life, and alone ; for, although they had 
children, their children had been under the necessity, as soon as 
capable of service, of leaving home in search of a livelihood. 
The appearance of these people was altogether respectable, but 
there were two incidents, which, though very small in themselves, 
at least furnished matter for grave reflection. The landlord had 
given notice, a few days previously, to some of his cottagers to 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 65 

quit, because, with a view to the small profit to be derived from 
their board, they had taken lodgers into their families, who were 
not agreeable to him. The old people whom I was visiting, 
though they had occupied the same place for perhaps more than 
thirty years, and felt themselves quite too far advanced to seek 
a new home, were suffering under the apprehension that they 
too might, in some way, have involuntarily incurred the land- 
lord's displeasure, and might be turned out of their homes like- 
wise ; and the woman said that her husband, through fear of 
such an event, " had had no sleep for several nights." In another 
house, which we visited, we found the woman of the house had 
just returned from attending the accouchement of a neighbor, the 
wife of a laboring man ; and she told us that when she an- 
lounced to the father the birth of twins, he received the intelli- 
gence with sadness, and replied, that " it would have been a 
kinder act if Heaven had been pleased to have taken them both 
away." Where honest and laborious people, in advanced age, 
feel constantly that they may be turned adrift, at the caprice of 
their landlord, from the home of their youth, and where a father 
regards the birth of a child as a curse, the benevolent mind sees 
evils in the condition, which it must lament if it cannot remedy, 
and which it must lament the more, in proportion, as all remedy 
seems hopeless. The landlord in this case, as I am persuaded, 
was incapable of committing, knowingly, any act of injustice or 
unkindness ; but it is obvious to what abuses such a power is 
liable, and to what evils a relation of such servile and abject 
dependence may subject one. 

In the present condition of society in England, no material 
alteration, however, is to be looked for in the position of the 
laboring classes. Their lot seems to be sealed, and they must 
remain in this condition of servility and dependence. They 
cannot rise above it. They are not slaves ; but they are not 
free. Liberty and independence, to them, are words without 
meaning. They have no chains upon their hands, but the iron 
enters into their souls. Their limbs may be unshackled, but 
*;heir spirits are bound. 

At the anniversary meeting of the Northamptonshire Agricul- 
tural Society, several aged and respectable laborers were called 
in and advanced to the upper table to receive the premiums for 
^ood conduct, " which they had merited," in the terms of the 
6* 



66 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

report, '• by many years of faithful servitude.^^ I confess, as I 
said on the occasion to the noble president, tliis term sounded 
harshly to my ear, and the more, if it expressed their true con- 
dition. Go where they will, the same barriers impede their 
advance ; and if the ambition of wealth, or rank, or influence, 
of which they see such glittering examples continually passing 
before them, should ever dawn in their minds, it would kindle 
only to be extinguished under inexorable circumstances. 

There are persons who see in this condition no evil nor hard- 
ship. I am not about to expatiate upon its evils or hardships, 
if evils or hardships there be in it. If, in the present condition 
of society, pecuniary gain is to be the only worthy object of 
pursuit, and a pecuniary standard the only rule by which the 
goods of life are to be measured, and the human frame is to be 
regarded as only so much organized flesh and bone to be worked 
up at our pleasure into the means of wealth and luxury, then 
the improvement of the character and condition of the laboring 
classes is not a subject to attract the attention of the political 
economist, excepting so far as the perfection of the machine may 
conduce to the increased amount of the work to be accomplished 
by it. Bat, if a better rule is to prevail, and men are to feel 
their moral responsibility to each other, and the physical comfort 
of those by whose t(*il we live, and the moral improvement of 
tliose upon whom, as well as upon their more favored brethren, 
God has equally impressed his own moral image, are to be cared 
for, the condition of the laboring classes deserves the most serious 
attention and the most cordial interest of every man who has a 
spark of patriotism, public spirit, or philanthropy in his bosom. 

This attention is now given, in various parts of the country, 
by many persons of distinguished benevolence and active useful- 
ness, who know no higher pursuit, and find no richer pleasure, 
than in doing good. They are not willing, while they enjoy the 
loaf, to put their laborers ofl" with merely the under crust, and 
not always enough of that. 

The census of Great Britain reports the number of laborers 
employed in agriculture at 887,167, and these, with their fami- 
lies, compose a population of not less than 3,500,000, or one fifth 
of the whole population of the kingdom. The wages of labor, 
according to the reports of the committees of Parliament, vary, 
in diflerent counties, from 7s. sterling to 12s. per week; and the 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 67 

rent of their cottages may be said to average about 1 s. 6 d. ster- 
ling per week, or £3 18 s. per year.* It may interest some of 
my American readers to learn the expense of some of the families 
of the cottagers, as they are given from authentic sources, as 
below : — 

•' H. Sopp, laborer, has a wife and four children ; earns 9 s. 6 d. 
a week ; spends 7 s. 2 d. in flour and yeast ; has been without 
tea, cheese, butter, soap, firing and candles, clothes and beer, for 
three months." 

'• Slements, laborer, has a wife and four children ; earns 

1] s. 6d. per week ; spends 7 s. 3d. in flour and yeast." 

'• Pullen, laborer, has a wife and six children ; wages 11 s. 

d. ; flour and yeast, 9 s. 7 d." 

I shall quote, further, the actual expenses of a laboring man 
with a wife and six children, in March, 1841; and "this will 
afl"ord an average view of the manner of living of the agricultural 
population of the southern and midland counties of England." 

6 gallons of flour, 8 s. Od. 

Yeast, 3 

1 lb. of meat, and ^ lb. of suet, 8 

1 lb. of butter, 10 

1 lb. of cheese, 6 

^ lb. of candles, 3^ 

^ lb. of soap, . 3J 

Potatoes, 10 

Worsted, starch, cotton, and tape, .... 3 

Total, .... 12 3 

•' This leaves nothing for rent, clothing, education, or any 
other expenses, the only fund for defraying which consists of 
the extra earnings during harvest-time, a resource which, in many 
parts of England, is greatly limited by the periodical influx of 
Irish laborers. It is obvious, from a glance at this statement, 
that the bulk of agricultural laborers in the country are, at the 
best, just able to struggle on from hand to mouth, and that any 
suspension of employment, rise in the price of provisions, or 

* One shilling sterling may be reckoned at 24 cents 4 mills : when a sover 
eign, as now, is estimated at $4.88. 



68 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

unforeseen casualty, must, of necessity, compel them to resort to 
charity, or to descend to a coarser diet, and exchange the habits 
of an English for those of an Irish peasant." * 



* The condition of living among the poor agricultural laborers may, perhaps, 
find some strong illustrations in the subjoined note, wliich is for those only to 
read who take an interest in so humble a subject: — 

" A poor man can seldom afford to purchase even the coarsest joint of mutton : 
but if he lives near a town, he can often get the shcap^s head and pluck for less 
tlian 1 s. G d.. indeed very frequently for a shilling ; and with these his wife can 
make up/our liot meals. These substantial and truly savory meals may be eaten 
with potatoes only, as bread is not necessary. 

" No instruction is necessary for the making of pies and puddings," (that is, 
because tlic laborer is never expected to have them,) " whether of fruit or meat ; 
but we may just remark that a. meat-puddhig (when a laborer can afford it) is one 
of the most substantial and savory dishes that can be brought to a hungry man's 
table; and if, instead of putting pie-crust over the meat, you cover it with mashed 
potatoes, and put it either into the oven or bake it by the side of the fire, it 
will answer quite as well as paste. In Cornwall, there is a common practice, 
among those cottagers who bake at home, of making little pasties for the din- 
ners of those who may be working at a distance in the fields. They will last 
the whole week, and are made of any kind of meat or fruit, rolled up in a paste 
made of flour and suet or lard. A couple of ounces of bacon, and i^ lb. of raw- 
potatoes, botli thinly sliced and slightly seasoned, will be found sufficient for the 
meal ; the pasty can be carried in tlie man's pocket, but it costs 4 d., as 
thus : — 

i lb. of flour, Id. 

Suet or lard, Id. 

Potatoes, Oi d. 

i lb. of bacon, 1| d. 

" Oatmeal is a frequent diet of the Scotch and Irish peasantry. The prepara- 
tion is simply to put a handful at a tune gradually into a pot of warm water, and 
a little salt, simmering it over the fire and keeping it stirred with the other hand, 
until it becomes as thick as a pudding ; or in about ten minutes time. It may 
tlien be eaten with a little treacle, or with a piece of butter put into the centre ; 
but the better way is to eat it with cold milk, taking a spoonful of the stirabout 
with a mouthful of the milk; for if boiled in milk, it is not near so good. Fine 
meal does not answer the purpose, and the coarse ground ' Scotch oatmeal ' is 
the best. Now, about half a pound of this, along with three pints of milk, will 
make a substantial and a very wholesome breakfast or supper for the family. It is 
indeed a hearty food ; and the cottager, who seeks to support his wife and chil- 
dren both frugally and healthfully, should never be without it. The price in 
London is 4 d. per quart, and the quart weighs nearly 1^ lb. ; so, supposing the 
milk to be bought at 1 d. tlie quart, three good meals can thus be got for 8i d. 

"Potatoes will ever be the peasant's standard vegetable; for, if of good mealy 
quality, they contnin more nutriment than any other root; and three or four 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 69 

The following was given me as the wages paid on a farm 
111 Lincolnshire, where the wages are more liberal than in 



pounds are equal in point of nourishment to a pound of the best wheaten bread, 
besides having the great advantage of betteffdling the stoinacJu 

"The liquor in which any meat is boiled should always be saved for the mak- 
ing of soup, and tJic bones even offish should also be preserved ;for although quite bare 
of meat, yet if stewed down for several hours, they will yield a species of brotli, 
which, along with peas or oatmeal, will make good soup. A lot of bones may 
always be got from the butchers' for twopence, and they are never scraped so 
clean as not to have some scraps of meat adhering to them. 

"This done, the bones are to be agaiii boiled in the same manner, but for a 
longer time, and the broth may be made tlie next day into a stew with rice. 

" Nor is this all ; for the bones, if again boiled for a still longer time, will once 
more yield a nourishing broth, which may be made into pea-soup ; and when 
thus done with ( ! ) " (for, alas ! every thing mortal has an end) " may either be 
sold to the crusher, or pounded by yourself, and used as manure for your garden." 

These directions are extracted from a Treatise, of which I do not question the 
utility, on Cottage Economy, published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 
Society, and which certainly contains many valuable suggestions for the poor 
cottager. The perfect coolness and calm philosophy, however, with which the 
writer descants upon a single sheep's head and pluck making four savory din- 
ners for a family ; and a pasty made of any kind of meat or fruit rolled up in 
flour and lard, with a couple of ounces of bacon, and half a pound of raw pota- 
toes tliinly sliced, and slightly seasoned, carried in a man's pocket when lie goes 
to work a good distance from home, being ample for his dinner ; and upon pota- 
toes having the great advantage over bread of better filling the stomach ; and the 
advice respecting the cooking of the same bones again and again, three succes- 
sive days, make one tiiink, to use Burke's expression, " that the Norfolk Squares 
must have dined" before they could have attained this high degree of phi- 
losophy. 

The directions for eating the stirabout or oatmeal porridge seem likewise 
very kindly given to those who appear to have so little use for their mouths as 
hardly to know tlie way to tliem. " The better way is to eat it with cold milk, 
taking a spoonful of the stirabout with a mouthful of the milk." 

The contrasts constantly presenting themselves in human life are often strik- 
ing and instructive ; and it may not be without its moral use if, with the labor- 
er's " savory " viands, his sheep's head and pluck, his cold pasty, and his bones 
boiled three times over, together with the wholesome advice, given in the same 
treatise, " to pinch and screw tlie family even in tlie commonest necessaries," until 
he get a week's wages beforehand, that he may not run in debt, (query, what in 
tlie name of humanity does '■'■piiwhing and scrcwi7rg" mean in this case, unless 
it be to boil the bones again after they are pounded ?) we compare the bill of 
fare at the dinner given to the council of the Royal Agricultural Society, by tlie 
mayor in behalf of the city of Derby, at the late agricultural show, holden in 
July, 1843, in that hospitable town. This bill, as well it may bo, is printed on 
blue satin paper, in letters of gold, in keeping with the banquet 



70 



EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. 



many places, and the farming of the highest order of excel- 
lence : — 



ROYAL HOTEL — DERBY 
The Mayor's Banquet to the. Royal Agricultural Council, July 11, 1843. 

Bill of Fare. 



FIRST COURSE. 

Three turbots and lobster sauce. 
Three salmon and shrimp do. 
Five dishes of filletted soles. 
Five dislies of trout. 
Ten tureens of turtle soup. 
Eiglit do. of gi-een pea do. 
Eight do. of soup Julian. 

SECOND COURSE. 

Four haunclies of venison. 
Four necks of do. 
Five couples of boiled chickens. 
Four hams. 

Three calves' heads, stewed. 
Four quarters of lamb. 
Four geese. 

Four veal fricandeau and ragout. 
Four pigeon pies. 
Two rumps of beef, stewed. 
Four savory pies. 
Five turkey poults. 
Five tongues. 
Three surloins of beef. 
Three legs of lamb, and gooseberry 
sauce. 



Lobster patties. 
Stewed kidneys. 
Sweetbreads. 



Mutton cutlets with tomatas. 

Veal tendons. 

Curried lobsters. 

Veal cutlets and mushrooms. 

Curried rabbits. 

Lamb cutlets and cucumber sauce. 

Eight leverets. 

Eight couples of ducks. 

Eight couples of roast chickens. 

Eight plumb puddings. 

Eighty dishes of Bakewell do. 

Eight do. of apricot do. 

Twenty do. of cheese cakes. 

Thirty do. of maids of honor. 

Cherry tarts, and currant do. 

Jellies, blanc manger. 

Rhenish cream, &c., &c. 



Ices, grapes, peaches, cherries. 
Nectarines, strawberries, raspberries, 

pines. 
Almonds and raisins. 
Candied fruits. 

Damson cheese, Tartarian cheese. 
Orange marmalade. 
Preserved ginger. 
Sponge cakes, pound cakes. 
Fruit, brandy, wine, biscuits, ginger 

cakes, &c., &c., &.c. 



Wines at pleasure. 

In these comparisons most certainly I mean no disrespect to any human being. 
I myself, with a large party, had the honor to sit down at the hospitable and ele- 
gant table of the Mayor of Derby, who, in company with many of tlie citizens 
of that ancient town, spared no effort to make the visits of their friends as agree- 



AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 71 

The Foreman — 

Has a house and garden (about 3 roods) rent free ; 
He keeps three young men, for which he has £15 a 

year each, £45 ; 
He has 6 bushels of malt for each man, 

— 1 quarter do. for himself, 

— the best wheat at 48 s. per quarter, 
'i — seconds do. at 32 s. " 

f — four pigs kept in the yard with his master's. 

I He feeds and kills his own bacon, i 

I and has £24 in cash, and two cows kept. ! 

The Shepherd — 

Has a house and garden (about 2 roods) rent free, 

— 2 quarters of wheat at 48 s. per quarter, 

— 2 bushels of malt, 

— a cow kept, and 

— £22 a year in money. 

Four laborers have the following yearly wages, from May-day 
to May-day : — 

2s. 3d. per day, from May-day to Michaelmas, 

Is. 9 d. •' from Michaelmas to May-day, 

2 s. 3d. per acre for grass and clover mowing, 

7 s. " for corn cutting, 

16 bushels of wheat, at 6 s. per bushel, 

1 bushel of malt, without charge, 

1 cow kept, do. 

able and comfortable as possible ; and certainly in this respect no persons could 
liave succeeded better. Nor am I disposed to find fault with the luxuries with 
which any gentleman or company are disposed to entertain their guests. But 
the contrast here presented between the condition of the producer and the con- 
sumer — between him whose toil creates the food and him who eats it — cannot 
fail to read a most important and instructive lesson. What its moral uses arc, I 
think, no fair and reflecting mind will be at a loss to perceive. I shall not. 
therefore, as in ^sop's fables, write the moral at the bottom, but I shall leave the 
whole to my reader, without note or comment ; feeling sure that if it leads to 
no serious reflections, there must be a melancholy obtuseness of intellect ; and 
if it stirs no pity and no humanity within him, there is reason to fear that all 
the springs are cut off, and the well is utterly dry. Such, alas ! are but too 
often, though not always, the melancholy effects of luxury and prosperity. 



72 EtmOPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Each laborer pays £4 4 s. for a house, and has about 3 roods 
of garden. 

Calculation of what each man receives. 

90 days, at 2 s. 3d., £10 2 6 

21 acres of grass and clover mowing, at 2 s. 3 d. . 2 7 3 

18 " of corn cutting, at 7 s., 6 6 

172 days, at 1 s. 9 d., 15 10 

Cow keeping, 880 

42 4 9 
Deduct house-rent, 4 4 

Net yearly wages, 38 9 

" The English laborer," says an assistant poor-law commis- 
sioner, '• even if he has transcendent abilities, has scarcely any 
prospect of rising in the world, and becoming a small farmer. 
He commences his career as a weekly laborer, and the probabil- 
ity is, that, whatever may be his talents and industry, as a weekly 
laborer he will end his days." '•' This is the best side of the 
picture : what is the reverse ? If he has no chance of rising in 
the world, how many chances has he of falling ? If he is thrown 
out of employment ; if he has a large family of girls or yonng 
children ; if he yields to temptation, and becomes irregular in his 
habits ; what is to become of him ? The answer is obvious : 
for a time he will be assisted by casual charity, and struggle on 
against extreme privations ; but if the causes of distress continue, 
one or other of two things will be his final lot — he will either 
be enrolled among the 1,072,978 paupers receiving parish relief 
under the new poor law ; or he will be starved out of the coun- 
try into some large town, and absorbed in the floating population 
who tenant the cellars and lodging-houses, and live by the worst- 
paid description of manufacturing industry, or by thieving, pros- 
titution, and casual employment." * 

As I have before remarked, it is much more easy to point out 
and deplore an evil, than it is to suggest a remedy. A republican 
would say that the evil is fundamental, and grows out of a con- 
stitution of society establishing different ranks, the appropriation 

* Laingr's Prize Address. 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 73 

of the land in a few hands, the high price of land, the depressing 
sense of dependence, and the hopelessness of competition and of 
all attempts to acquire influence, respect, or wealth, incidental 
to, and inseparable from, such a framework of society. Persons 
born to afliuence and distinction, and persons who have never 
felt their efforts checked or suppressed by a sense of a depend- 
ence which they cannot escape, can very imperfectly estimate 
the effect of these circumstances upon character. But whether 
desirable or not — and, in this matter, I would leave every man 
to the enjoyment of his own honest opinion — as all expectation 
of a change in the constitution of English society seems as vain 
as to expect to reduce the inequalities of the surface of the coun- 
try to a common level — it only remains to consider what alle- 
viations of the evils of the condition of the laboring classes can 
be successfully attempted. The inquiry is one which most 
deeply concerns religion and humanity. It is only just likewise to 
remark, — and I do it with the highest pleasure, — that the subject 
is now interesting innumerable benevolent persons in the highest 
ranks and in the middle conditions of life, to a degree perhaps 
never before known ; and that many of the brightest minds are 
now concentrating their energies upon its investigation and cure. 
It is with equal pleasure that I can say, that I have found among 
many of the landlords the most watchful attention to the welfare 
of their laborers, and every kind provision for them in sickness, 
decay, or misfortune. Alas ! that there are so many who do 
not come within the reach of this provision, and so many who 
refuse or neglect to make it. 



XIII. — ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 

That which seems to be admitted on almost all hands to have 
operated to the most advantage, is what is termed the allotment 
system. In this case, the laborer hires of the landlord a small 
piece of land, — and it is generally limited to one quarter of an 
acre, and seldom exceeds half an acre, — for which he pays such 
a rent as may be agreed upon ; and he and his family cultivate it 
^7 



74 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

in their spare time, either before going to work or after having 
returned from their day's work. The manner in which this 
land shall be appropriated is generally determined or prescribed 
by the landlord ; though, in some cases, it remains optional with 
the laborer. These small lots of land, though generally leased at 
a moderate rent, — in some cases, as at the Duke of Devonshire's 
village of Edensor, at a rent merely nominal, — bring at the rate 
of from one pound to eight pounds an acre, though, in the latter 
case, the land generally lies contiguous to some large manufac- 
turing town, where the laborer finds an opportunity of disposing 
of many small products at a high price. In general, the land so 
taken, exclusive of some few garden vegetables for daily use, is 
applied to the growing of potatoes and wheat, and alternated 
with these two crops. 

The effect of these allotments upon the character of the occu- 
pant is quite remarkable. He becomes himself, for the time 
being, an owner of the soil ,• he has a feeling of independence 
which nothing else can give, and which at once exalts his char- 
acter. He is able to avail himself to advantage of the labor of 
his Avife and children, who in some cases perform most of the 
work on the ground in hours which would otherwise be wasted 
or misappropriated. His ground yields him a large supply of 
vegetables for his family, and enables him to keep and fatten a 
pig or two, and likewise some poultry, which very much conduce 
to his comfort, and that of his family. The cultivation of his 
ground likewise occupies hours which might otherwise be spent 
in the drinking-house, where nothing good is to be learned, and 
where the foundation of the ruin of many a laborer is laid ; and 
the ruin of his family follows generally, as matter of course. 
Besides these advantages from the allotment system, his youngest 
children are here early trained to habits of industry and care- 
fulness. 

The mere keeping of a pig in such cases is a matter of serious 
profit, and not of that only, but of pleasure ; and I have been so 
much struck with the remarks of one of the commissioners on 
this subject, that I transcribe them for the gratification of my 
readers : — 

" Of such a pig, the first product of allotment, garden or potato 
headland, it is the fashion among political economists to speak 
disrespectfully. Now, whatever might be the superior profit, to 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 76 

the cottager, of saving the money which he spends on his pigs 
and buying his bacon in the market, tliis, as it never has been, 
and never will be so saved, we may dismiss. In the mean time, 
his pig, besides its usefulness, is also a real pleasure to him ; it is 
one of his principal interests in life ; he makes sacrifices to it ; 
he exercises self-control for its sake ; it prevents him living from 
hand to mouth, stupidly careless of the future. I am persuaded 
that a greater act of cruelty could hardly be perpetrated, than the 
discountenancing this practice, or rather amusement and enjoy- 
ment, among the poor." * 

So much for the moral effects of this simple matter of the poor 
man's keeping a pig, in which I perfectly agree with the writer, 
and honor the benevolence which discerns, even in these humble 
matters, a moral utility. It is difficult, to say, why, when the 
rich man finds his pleasure in his hunters, his dogs, his game, his 
menageries, and aviaries, the poor man should not have his 
pleasure in his pig ; an animal, indeed, not always of the most 
agreeable endowments, nor of very refined manners, but yet in 
temper and manner susceptible of a considerable improvement by 
education, and entitled to no small respect for his usefulness, 
since if his master feeds him when living, he returns the kindness, 
when dead, by feeding his master ; a merit which cannot be 
ascribed to some other domestic pets far more expensively cher- 
ished and caressed. 

Too much indeed cannot be said in favor of the allotment 
system, of its justice, its humanity, and its usefulness. Its influ- 
ence upon the happiness of the poor, and its moral tendencies — 
its tendency to prevent idleness and dissipation, and to produce 
sobriety, industry, and frugality, and especially to keep men at 
home, and attach them to their homes, most strongly recommend 
it. Many facts prove that the laborers in some instances pay 
full double the ordinary rent of the land, and find their account 
in it. In most cases, however, the lease of a farmer forbids his 
under-letting any portion of his land ; and allotments can only 
be granted under special agreement, or by the particular consent 
of the landlord. This is not always to be procured ; nor is it 
always without strong opposition from the farmers themselves. 

It will perhaps be asked, by some of my readers, why do I 

* Sir H. Doylo's Report on Employment of Women and Children, p. 295. 



76 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

enter so fully into the condition of the rural population in Eng- 
land, when we have nothing which bears a resemblance to it in 
the United States. This latter is one of the very reasons why 
I do it; but I hope that others will present themselves, upon 
reflection, which will at least excuse, if not justify me. I may 
as well give some of those reasons in this place ; then, perhaps, 
I may be heard with more patience. 

I have promised my friends here, and in the United States, 
that they shall have my honest impressions of whatever comes 
under my observ'ation connected with agricultural and rural 
affairs, and the condition of the rural population. In the next 
place, I see in the list of my subscribers the names of many, who 
will take a much stronger interest in such views, than in details 
of crops, accounts of live stock, and the practical operations of 
husbandry, which I shall go into at large in the course of my 
reports ; certainly I am bound to consult, in some measure, their 
tastes. In the next place, we shall find in the management of 
small farms and small allotments, examples of successful culti- 
vation, which cannot be without their use and application to 
farming on a much more extended scale. Lastly, I cannot think 
it will be without its use to compare the condition of a laborer, 
where to him land, under the present condition of things, is unat- 
tainable, and labor superabundant, with a condition of labor 
where, as in the free states, every industrious man can have land 
of the most fertile and productive character almost at his pleasure, 
and where the price of land places it within reach of his labor ; 
where every man may have his home, and sit down quietly 
without tlie apprehension of removal ; where it is not a necessary 
study with him how often he may have meat, or how many 
days in the week he may have bread ; but where, with industry, 
sobriety, and frugality, he may always have more meat and more 
bread than he requires, and something for the poor and the 
stranger. 

I shall take the liberty here of inserting an account, sent me 
by a kind friend, of the working of the allotment system in a 
village within his neighborhood — I believe in Lincolnshire. It 
is an interesting and instructive account. His opinions respect- 
ing the size of farms must rest upon his own responsibility. I 
neither endorse nor deny them. On the subject of the size of 
farms I shall speak at large when my views have become matured 
by further observation. 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 77 

" Scampton is the property of a gentleman (Sir George Cay- 
ley, Bart.) of liberal views and enlarged benevolence. One of 
his first movements, upon succeeding to the estate some thirty 
years ago, was to provide for the comfort of those who, under his 
superior tenants, were to be the immediate laborers upon his land. 

'' To fourteen cottages allotments of land were made. A 
field of sixteen acres was set apart as pasturage, that each cot- 
tager might keep a cow ; and another field of twenty-six acres 
was appropriated as mowing ground, that all might be provided 
with fodder for the winter. Each cottage had an acre of tillage 
land allotted to it in the field, and something like another half 
acre as garden ground, around its little homestead. 

" A cow club, or insurance, was established, to enable those 
cottagers who lost a cow by casualty, to replace her immedi- 
ately, and without loss of time. 

"In the spring of the year, the cows are valued by a compe- 
tent and disinterested person. Each cottager pays sixpence in 
the pound on the value of his cow. Cows above fourteen years 
of age are not insurable. If a cow dies within the year, the 
owner receives three fourths of her value. The dead cow is the 
property of the club. 

" Sixpence in the pound, annually, has actually covered, to 
three fourths of the value, all casualties upon a run of twenty 
years. 

" Under the inspection of a shrewd and spirited agent, the 
whole affair has worked to admiration, and been productive of 
peace and plenty amidst the little community whose happiness it 
was designed to promote. No burning of stacks here, because 
every man has one of his own. No invasion of the rights of 
property, because every man is a possessor of property, and 
anxious to guaranty his neighbor's rights, that he may hold his 
own in the better security. 

" The rent that each cottager pays is something less than £10 
per annum. The produce that is yielded, much to the credit of 
the humble cultivators, is abundantly ample to cover the out- 
goings, and leaves a surplus that makes them comfortable. 

" The acre of tillage land is remarkably productive. It is 

divided into two allotments : half an acre is in wheat, the other 

half in potatoes ; alternating the crops, of course, every year. 

On this short rotation, the land has not suffered, hut actually 

7# 



78 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

increased infertility. For the last ten years, the crops of wheat 
have yielded twenty bushels to the half acre. The twenty 
years preceding, eighteen bushels was the average. Instances 
of twenty-seven bushels to the half acre have been known. 
The half acre of potatoes, with others grown in the garden, are 
usually fed to pigs, and instances have been known where the 
cottager has sold twenty pounds worth of pigs and well supplied 
his own family with bacon. It is common for them to sell from 
ten to twenty pounds worth of pigs, or pork, per annum, and 
still keep a good supply for family use. Some of the cottagers, 
who have been blessed with careful wives and good cows, have 
sent twelve pounds of butter, per week, to market, during all the 
flush of the feed. 

" It must be understood, that while the cottager's allotment 
of land is thus multiplying his comforts, he has a constant sup- 
ply of work, and current wages, from the neighboring farmers. 
His own farming is done after his master's day's work is com- 
pleted, with perchance a day now and then, as at seed-time and 
harvest. 

" Happy, comfortable, and superior in condition, as these cot- 
tagers appear, yet the system that makes them so has often been 
called in question. It has been observed, that the children of 
cottagers, thus happily situated, are not over anxious to go to 
service, and not over apt to keep their places when they do go. 
There appears a latent consciousness about them that the house 
of their parents is well supplied with bread and bacon. 

" Perhaps the evil, if it be one, has a deeper origin than at 
j&rst sight appears. May it not be traceable to our social system, 
the genius of which delights to keep property in large masses, 
under great proprietors ? These proprietors have a similar predi- 
lection for large divisions of their property — large farms, and 
men of large capital to work them. All this may be well — 
very well suited to the cast-iron consciences of the political 
economists; but it creates a chasm between the large farmer — 
the farmer of two hundred and fifty acres, with a capital of 
twenty-five hundred pounds, and the mere laboring cottager. 
The latter can never hope to pass so great a void. There are no 
intermediate resting-places. There are no farms of twenty, 
fifty, or a hundred acres, to which the successful and deserving 
cottager can be promoted. The steps of the ladder are out. 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 79 

Having obtained the rare blessing of a cottage allotment, the 
language of his heart is, ' Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for in 
onr present condition we must die.' His highest ambition 
being achieved, and the family little more to hope for, it is not to 
be wondered at that some little laxity should be observable. Let 
the great landlords of the land supply a motive by a more 
natural division of their property — let them encourage the aspi- 
rations of the industrious cottagers by small farms in prospective, 
and larger beyond them, and the energies of onr peasantry will 
never be found to flag. But this is, perhaps, scarcely to be 
hoped for." 

I shall go still more largely into the subject of allotments, as 
presenting one of the first and most efficient means of bettering 
the condition of the agricultural laborer. My own convictions 
are strong on this point ; and they are sustained and strength- 
ened by the testimony of many men of large experience and 
shrewd observation. The laborer finds, in an allotment, a means 
of turning his spare hours to advantage, and in a mode of labor 
which, from its very character, being in the association of his wife 
and children., under his own control and management, and for his 
own immediate and personal benefit, becomes a pleasure instead 
of a toil. He finds in it the means of eking out his scanty 
wages ; of providing, to a degree, for an occasion of sickness, or 
other suspension of his employment and wages. He is enabled 
to bring from this source many rare comforts to his own frugal 
table; and has himself, if he is a man of feeling. — and why 
should he not be? — an opportunity of enjoying one of the 
richest of all pleasures, — that of making a small contribution to 
relieve an unfortunate or a sick neighbor. It presents a good 
school of industry for his children, under his own immediate 
inspection. It quickens his own intelligence in making agricul- 
tural experiments upon a small and useful scale, and rouses a 
spirit of wholesome emulation in his crops even with the master 
farmers. It removes him from strong temptations to gambling, 
low dissipation, and intemperance. It gives him an interest in 
the soil ; it attaches him to his home ; it involves him in all the 
risks of the public safety ; and makes him the friend of public 
peace and order. It gives him the spirit of a man, raising him 
above the sense of slavish dependence, and the dread of becom- 
ing a pensioner on public charity. In so doing, it at once exalts 



80 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

him in the community ; induces a most wholesome self-respect ; 
inspires a just regard for the rights of property ; attaches him the, 
more strongly to his superior, who thus shows his willingness 
that he should walk erect instead of keeping him upon the 
ground Av^ith his foot upon his neck ; and presents innumerable, 
constant, and powerful motives to improvement and good con- 
duct. I wish it were in my power to convey to those, who have 
been born to affluence, rank, and authority, the force of these 
sentiments upon minds altogether differently circumstanced from 
themselves; but I know it would be difficult — I fear it might 
be impossible. A consciousness of absolute dependence, so ex- 
tremely difficult to be engrafted in the human mind, seems 
indispensable to teach us our duty either to man or God. 

That the whole of this subject has an important bearing in its 
economical and moral aspects upon my own country cannot, I 
think, be overlooked by a reflecting mind ; and, in the course 
of my reports, will, I trust, be made more fully apparent. 




'^ 







m ^ . 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



SECOND REPORT. 



XIII. — ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. (Continued.) 

My First Report was concluded with the important subject of 
allotments of land to laborers. This subject, without an explana- 
tion, would scarcely be understood by a majority of the farmers 
in the United States. The agricultural laborers, or, as they are 
here termed, the farm-servmits, are seldom or never owners of 
land. They receive their wages in money or produce, as I have 
already described ; and some of them, living in compact villages, 
have not even a small piece of ground for a garden, though, in 
many parts of the country, the cottages have small gardens at- 
tached to them. The unmarried laborers sometimes live in the 
houses of their employers ; but this is not now a general nor a 
frequent practice. The married laborers live in cottages on the 
estate, or in a neighboring village. 

It is obvious how great advantages a poor family in the 
country may derive from a small piece of land, and how much 
produce may be obtained from it for their support and comfort 
by the application of even a small amount of labor, which other- 
wise, without such opportunity of applying it, would be lost, oi- 
rather would not be exerted. Many persons, therefore, have 
leased to their laborers small portions of land, varying in size 
from a quarter of an acre, or even less, to an acre, and in some 
cases more than this, to be cultivated in such crops as the laborer 
may select, or as may be prescribed by the proprietor. One 



82 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

condition is usually made absolute in these cases — that the land 
should be cultivated with a spade, and not with a plough. The 
results therefore become the more interesting. 

I shall give here an account of a successful attempt at the 
improvement of the condition of the poor rural laborers by allot- 
ments of land, cultivated by the spade, uniting with these allot- 
ments, at the same time, a provision for the education of the poor 
children by whose labor these grounds are cultivated. The 
accounts have a twofold value, in showing the practicableness 
of meeting the expenses of education by the labor of the pupils, 
and the increased and extraordinary product which may be ob- 
tained from land under the spade husbandry. 

" A friend to the more general diffusion of a sound education 
amongst the peasantry of the United Kingdom, who has long 
witnessed the success with which education may be, toithoiit cost, 
combined with instruction, in the best modes of cultivating the 
soil, begs to submit to those who are impressed with the impor- 
tance of the effort, the few following facts: — 

•' A landed proprietor has established what are termed ' Agricul- 
tural Schools,' upon the principle of uniting our present national 
with agricultural instruction, by making the labor of the little 
.scholars, while under tuition in the art of husbandry in the after- 
noon, to compensate the master, in the way of salary, for the 
instruction they receive from him, in the usual course of our 
national education m the morning. Schools have already been 
established upon this plan at the villages of East Dean and Wil- 
lingdon, and they are attended with the happiest results. The 
usual quantity of land required for the purpose does not exceed 
five acres ; and for this the master pays a rent, certainly equal to, 
and in most cases beyond, that of the adjoining land, occupied 
by farmers. In the case of the Willingdon school, there is an 
appropriate house, for which the master pays an additional rent. 
The only payment in money to the master is the usual penny a 
week from each scholar. 

'' Nor can any reasonable objection be made to this plan on 
the ground of so employing the boys in the afternoon. The 
girls in our national schools are taught, and for the same number 
of hours, to work with the needle, the use of which is not more 
important to them than that of Ihe spade and the hoe to the 
boys. 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 83 

" As various questions will naturally suggest themselves to 
those who read this statement, the following answers, by the 
schoolmaster, to numerous inquiries already made, are inserted 
here : — 

*' Reply of the Master to Inquiries respecting this School. 

"'I have twenty scholars, to whom I teach reading, writing, 
and accounts, the Chiurch Catechism, Collects, and Psalmody on 
the national plan, with the approbation of the vicar, without any 
salary, for one penny per week from each boy, from nine to 
twelve o'clock ; and from two till five in the afternoon cultiva- 
ting the land. I have not lost one from dissatisfaction, but I am 
glad to say that they willingly assist me. 

" ' I am satisfied that I can keep two cows on the same quantity 
of ground, stall-fed, where I could keep but one if I allowed her 
to graze ; and grow more corn. 

" ' I have no grass land, and all the first winter my cows had 
only straw, turnips, and mangel-wurzel, till green food came on in 
the spring ; and now my hay is the clover I sowed with the grain 
crop last year. 

" ' I have experienced a great deal of good from the liquid 
manure from the two tanks, one from the cows and the other 
from the pigs. 

•' ' I have just killed a pig weighing twenty-nine stone seven 
pounds, and one before about the same Aveight, Avhich I have 
used in my family?". I have a wife and four children. 

" ' It is allowed that my oats are the best sample in the parish. 
1 tied my oats in sheaves, and set them up the same as wheat, 
which saves a great deal of scattering : this is the general prac- 
tice in Cornwall and Scotland, and, I hear, in some parts of 
Kent, and is particularly useful for barley to malt. 

" ' I thrash my corn over the cow-house, as in Cornwall, 
Switzerland, &c., which keeps it perfectly dry, being thus kept 
from the damp ground. 

" * I am entirely supplied with water by the rain which falls on 
the house, preserved in a tank in the ground. 

" ' The quantity of land I rent is five acres, on the side of the 
South Downs, at £3 an acre ; this with £5 for my house, 
makes £20, which I have paid for the year ending Michael- 



84 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. 

mas last, though I might have taken off my crops, and hved 
rent-free ; but I preferred staying and teaching, though I have no 
salary ; and so, I think, would many others. 

" 'I have now three cows, a heifer, and a calf, standing oppo- 
site to each other, with a road between their mangers for feeding 
these stall-fed cattle, which have never needed a farrier ; and 
from skim milk I have made cheese like the Dutch cheese. 

" ' George Cruttenden. 
" ' WiLLiNGDON, near Eastbourne, Sussex, .^/?n7, 1842.' 

" ' At your request, I send the particulars of my produce last 
year, which I am perfectly satisfied with, leaving me a balance of 
£40 after every thing is paid, though the last was an unfavorable, 
dry summer. 

" ' I am likewise happy to say, the principal farmers of the 
pai'ish have taken into their employ six of my scholars, all under 
twelve years of age, into their service since Christmas, and two 
of them under nine ; and all, after leaving my day school, where 
they paid me one penny a week in addition to their work, have 
each paid me fourpence a Aveek out of their wages, for evening 
instruction ; and their master is now using the liquid manure the 
same as I do, which I have found most beneficial. 

" ' I have a wife and foiu: children, whom I support in a 
comfortable w^ay, and wish I could see many of my neigh- 
bors do the same ; but that is not the case. 

" ' G. Cruttenden. 

" ' WiLLixGDON School, Jlpril 14, 1843.' 

" A landed proprietor at Willingdon, seeing the success of this 
school, recommended the establishment of a similar school in the 
adjoining parish of East Dean, where, in the spring of 1842, five 
acres of land were let to John Harris, an infirm man, who, two 
years before, had been in the Eastbourne Union House, with his 
wife and seven children, where, at three shillings per head, they 
cost at the rate, yearly, of £70 4 s., which is equal to the rent of 
three hundred and fifty-one acres of sheep-walk : now he is 
supporting his family on only five acres, and, when recommended 
to give up his five acres, said, ' he had rather continue to pay 
rent, rates, tithes, and taxes, and teach without a salary, than 
have fourteen shillings a week without the land.' 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 85 

" Harris, in the Union House, resembled a mouse in a granary 
devom'ing the fruits of labor ; but does not this same Harris, on 
his five acres, resemble the mouse in the fable, releasing 
the famishing lion? for by his rent he is helping to support 
the owner of the soil, by his rates the poor, by his tithes 
the church, and by his taxes the state, which surprises those who 
have long been accustomed to hear it is requisite to let land in 
large farms, for the supply of food for large towns. 

" But do not the higher rents paid for allotments of land 
by the spade than the plough, show that, after supporting the 
cultivators and their families, they send more to market per aci'e 
than the great farmers ? 

" It was the eagerness of laborers in Sussex to hire land, that 
suggested the possibility of some men to obtain as much as five 
acres, undertaking to teach reading, &c., three hours daily with- 
out a salary, without at all anticipating that twelve boys, aver- 
aging eight years of age, by their labor for three hours after noon, 
could well pay for their instruction in school before noon ; but 
a trial of upwards of three years has put this beyond doubt, as 
dozens o-f signatures in the visitors' book testify, of clergymen 
and members of both Houses of Parliament, not only of this 
neighborhood, but also from Ireland and Scotland, amongst 
whom was Mi^. Townshend Mainwaring, M. P. for Denbigh, who 
inspected these schools April 29th, 1843, and entered in the East 
Dean visitors' book, that he was much gratified by the complete 
success which appeared to attend the simple principle upon which 
the school was conducted. 

" And these self-sup])orting schools require much less superin- 
tendence than where the master has a fixed salary, because, if he 
neglected or misused the boys before noon, their parents are not 
likely to send them back to work for him after noon. 

"He is interested in cultivating the land well, as it is the only 
support of his family. 

" Landlords are interested in letting land to masters who pay 
high rents. 

" Rate-payers are interested in able-bodied men being enabled 
to maintain themselves. 

" Parents are interested in sending their children where they 
early learn to earn their livings in that state of life unto which it 
has pleased God to call them. 
8 



86 EUROPEAN A(;RICi;i/n:KK. 

" The farmers around, seeing the great produce from stall- 
feeding and liquid manure, are interested in taking additional 
hands into their service. 

'' The more food that is raised from the soil, the more there 
will be to exchange for clothing, and thus an increased home 
market be provided for our manufacturers ; ^vho, the more they 
earn, the more they have to lay out in meat, &c. 

"And to effect this, there is no deficiency in capital. There 
is no want of hands, as our Union Houses are overflowing with 
the able-bodied ; nor is there any want of land, as the heaths, 
commons, and grazing land, even round London, show." 

It is stated, likewise, — and it is a fact deserving of all remark, 
— *' that, during a course of twelve years, out of four hundred 
rents, only three rents have been deficient, though the tenants 
were taken without reference to character, and told the rent 
would not be demanded if not tendered ; but the desire of keep- 
ing the land has secured the annual payment, and only one, during 
the whole of that time, has been convicted of a misdemeanor." 

"In fifty parishes in one county in which there are above 

three thousand allotments, after the most careful inquiry, our 
agent heard only of one commitment to prison in 1840, and not 
even one in 1841, out of the whole three thousand families." 

The general condition on which allotments are granted being 
that they shall be cultivated by the spade, the extraordinary 
product obtained in this way deserves to be remarked. The 
statements to which I shall refer are drawn from the reports of 
a committee of Parliament, and seem, therefore, entitled to con- 
fidence. I have myself visited several allotment grounds in 
different parts of the country, and am quite satisfied that the 
results under this system of management are not overstated. On 
this subject I shall say more hereafter ; but it may not be out of 
place if I give here some examples which have been referred to. 

Jesse Piper, in Sussex, holds an allotment of four acres. He 
obtained, in 1842, forty-two bushels of wheat from three quarters 
of an acre of land ; ho had two hundred and fifty bushels of 
potatoes from three fourths of an acre ; he had ten bushels of 
barley from the other land, and kept two cows, and three and 
sometimes four pigs ; he considers that there might be an acre 
of grass, and the cows were kept entirely upon the produce of 
the four acres : a portion of this was not arable, as some trees 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 87 

were growing upon it. A peculiarity in this man's management 
is, that he works one of his cows in his cart, and calculates that 
her labor saves him an expense of five pounds ; she is milked 
in the morning before she is put to work, and, although worked, 
she makes eight pounds of butter a week, besides furnishing 
some milk for the family. This is a sort of Robinson Crusoe 
management, which is well deserving of attention. It would 
not be easy to find a reason why the female of one class of ani- 
mals should be exempted from work, rather than of another ; and 
there is no ground to suppose that, with good feeding and carefid 
usage, moderate labor Avould be injurious to the health of an 
animal ; much more likely is it to be conducive to health, and 
even, in such case as this, to the more liberal secretions of milk. 
Other circumstances in this man's economy are worthy of ob- 
servation ; he saves all his liquid manure in a tank by his own 
house, and mixes with it a proportion of soot and salt ; he throws 
his land into heaps, and puts the liquid upon the heaps, and then 
spreads it abroad — "because," as he remarks, "his land is so 
near the chalk, that if he put his liquid manure upon the land, 
three foiurths of it would be wasted — it would go clean away, so 
as never to get it again ; but when put in a heap of mould it is 
retained." 

Produce of four Acres^ held by J. Piper, in 1842. 

£. s. d. 

42 bushels of wheat, at 7 s. 6d. per bushel 15 15 

250 do. potatoes, at 15 d. per do 15 12 6 

Food for one cow, which gave 4 lbs. butter per week, 

at 1 s. per lb 10 

The other cow do. do. do. do. .10 

Food for three pigs, at 20 st. each, and at 3 s. 6d. per st. 10 10 

£61 17 6 

This example shows the extraordinary results of minute and 
exact cultivation, and the value of economy in husbanding with 
extreme care all the resources for manure. The cow is an ani- 
mal I have always looked upon with the greatest respect for her 
justice and her liberality ; in this case she pays for her board by 
her yield in milk and butter, and adds to it her labor, or, as 
is said in case of a free passage on board ship, " she works her 



88 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

own passage ; " but the good creature's usefulness does not end 
here. When she has completed her round of beneficence, her 
benefactions do not close with her life ; her hoofs are made into 
glue ; her horns into combs ; her bones into knife-handles and 
cane-tops ; her hair worked up into plaster ; her skin into shoes ; 
and her meat into food. Who can wonder that the Hindoos 
always regarded her with a religious veneration ? 

The next instance presented by the Parliamentary Reports is 
that of J. Dumbrell. His allotment is six acres, and is managed 
by himself, his father, (seventy years old,) and a child of nine 
years old. " The soil is chalk, on a deep soil, in a valley." 

His stock consists of two cows and a heifer, and from two to 
three pigs. His succession of crops is thus described : " First, 
Italian rye grass, cut four times, watering it each time with 
liquid manure after cutting it ; then tares ; then clover ; then 
cabbage comes in, and mangel-wurzel ; and second cut clover, 
and sometimes three ; and that carries us all the summer 
through : then we begin upon the roots in winter, tmiiips and 
mangel-wiurzel, and straw." 

The following is the statement of his produce for 1840 : — 

£. s. d. 
From two cows in nine months and a half, from the 
16th of Jan. to the 26th of Oct., made 400ilbs. of 

butter, which at 1 s. per lb 20 3 

The cow, all the year stall-fed, yielding a third more 
than the other, which grazed half an acre ; and their 

two calves sold for 5 18 

The skim milk, at 3 pints Id., or given to the pigs, is 

estimated at 10 

On one quarter of an acre he grew 18 bushels of oats, 

which, at 4 s. per bushel, amounts to 3 12 

On 88 poles («. e., a little more than half an acre) he 
grew 32 bushels of wheat, worth, at 8 s. per bushel, 
(which is equal to the consumption of himself, his 

wife, and three infant children,) 12 10 

Besides pigs, potatoes, vegetables, and the butter to be 
expected to the end of the year, which may fairly 
be estimated on the whole of the land (including 
the foregoing, as I understand the account, which is 
rather imperfectly drawn up) at 60 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 89 

Out of this he paid — 

Rent, rates, tithes, and taxes of one acre, . £ I 7 

Rent of one acre and a half, 7 

Rent of half an acre of grass, . . .£2 10 

Lodge in it, 1 00 

Rates, tithes, and taxes, 15 

£4 5 

Hired labor, £2 

Seed corn, 2 

£4 

Leaving . . . . £43 8 

The two pounds paid for labor were paid for threshing. 
There are two other accounts of the same individual subjoined. 

Produce of three and one quarter Acres, in 1841. 

£. s. d. 

Wheat, 2 U bushels, at 8 s 8 12 

Oats, 44 bushels, at 2 s. 9 d 610 

Potatoes, 80 bushels, at 1 s 4 

Two calves sold for 5 10 

Butter, 423^ lbs., at Is 21 3 3 

Milk sold, and given to the pigs, 10 

£55 6 3 

Produce of six and one quarter Acres, in 1842. 

£. s. d. 

Wheat, 40 bushels, at 6 s. 6 d 13 

Oats, 93 bushels, at 2 s. 6 d 11 12 6 

Peas, 22 bushels, at 4 s. 6 d 4 19 

Potatoes, 150 bushels, at 1 s 7 10 

Two calves, one fat and one suckled, 3 7 

Butter, 290 lbs., at Is 14 10 

Milk sold, and given to pigs, 800 

£62 18 6 

In 1842, he lost two cows by death, and the additional land 
was taken in bad condition. 

At the same time, he presented a sample of his wheat, on which 
were eighty-four stalks from one grain. There is another secret 

8* 



90 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

of this man's success — he had signed the temperance pledge; 
he is a tee-totaller, and drinks neither spirituous nor fermented 
Hquor. 

An inquiry was made of Mr. Dumbreh, " how it was possible 
to keep two cows, and maintain a family of five persons, on only 
three acres of land ; " to which this is his answer — " The state- 
ment you saw was very true ; half an acre of pasture, half an 
acre and eight rods in wheat, and one quarter of an acre in oats , 
the other part was green food for the cows, such as rye, tares, 
cabbages, clover, mangel-wurzel, turnips, and Italian rye-grass. 
But if you are surprised at my keeping two cows on this quantity 
of land, I must tell you that one crop a year will not do it : but my 
plan is to take second crops ; that is, rye is the first thing I cut 
green in the spring ; then I dig the land, and manure it with the 
liquid manure, as far as it will go ; then finish with rotten dung, 
and plant mangel-wurzel and turnips ; and the part that 1 manure 
with the liquid is always the best. The next thing I cut is 
winter barley and turnips, and plant some cabbages for winter : 
by this time I cut the grass and clover, which grows again in a 
short time, with a little of the liquid manure as soon as it is cut. 
Last summer I cut the Italian rye-grass and clover three times ; 
and this year I have nearly cut it twice already, and there were 
really two good crops of the Italian rye-grass, and I think there 
will be two more this summer, with a little manuring. My early 
cabbages I always let stand to grow again all the summer, and 
they bring a great deal of food. I plant again in November, and 
put the liquid manure to them as far as it will go ; but to the 
rest I use dung or ashes, which are not so good as the liquid, 
which any body may tell in the spring by looking at the bed of 
cabbages ; so I hope it now appears how the cows are maintained 
in winter as well as in summer. Dming last winter, I had no 
hay, only turnips, mangel-wurzel, and straw, and they did very 
well." 

I have already apprized my readers that my Reports must be, 
in a degree, desultory, from the necessity of giving them before 
the whole ground has been gone over. Compelled at once to 
begin the erection of my building, I must use such materials as 
I have ; and which, I fear, under such circumstances, may appear 
incongruous and ill-assorted to an eye accustomed to order and 
exact arrangement ; whereas, if every thing were at hand, I might 



ALLOTMt:NT SYSTEM. 91 

better succeed in preserving the symmetry and adjusting the 
architectural proportions of the edifice. I shall therefore make 
no excuse for saying here something more of spade husbandry, 
and the extraordinary products of small pieces of land ; and it 
must be admitted that it is by no means disconnected with the 
subject of cottage allotments. 

The utmost productive capacity of an acre of land, in any 
crop, has not yet been fully determined. The amounts attained 
frequently surprise us ; but we have not yet got to the end of 
the line. 

One of the witnesses before the Parliamentary committee gives 
an account of a man who supported himself, and wife, and son, 
from two acres of land, for which he paid a rent for the two of £9 
10 s. ; and in the course of seven years, he had saved enough from 
the produce of his two acres to purchase two acres of land, for 
which he paid about £30 to £40 per acre. He states, likewise, 
his own personal knowledge of six acres of land, which, under 
the spade cultivation, produced at the rate of fifty-two bushels of 
wheat to the acre. Another witness testifies that on the estate 
of Lord Howard, Barbot Hall, in Yorkshire, a rood of land was 
dug and planted Avith wheat by his lordship's direction, and 
twenty-eight bushels of wheat were obtained from this quarter of 
an acre, which would be at the extraordinary and unheard-of 
rate of one hundred and twelve bushels per acre. 

The authenticity, or rather accuracy, of such a statement as 
this may well be considered as questionable ; but I have the 
pleasure of presenting one, exhibiting a most extraordinary yield, 
on which full reliance may be placed. 

In visiting Horsham, (the last summer,) in the county of 
Sussex, my attention was strongly attracted by two small pieces 
of wheat in a garden by the road-side, exhibiting an extraordinary 
luxuriance ; and I have been able to obtain a detailed liistory of 
its culture and yield, through the politeness of C. S. Dickens, Esq., 
of Coolhurst, near Horsham. 

The seed of this wheat was brought from Australia, being the 
product of some wheat which had been sent there two or three 
years before. The quantity of land sown, in one of the pieces, 
was thirty-four square yards. The wheat was dropped in rows 
nine inches apart, and in holes six inches apart, and only one 
grain in a place. The number of corns planted was GS2, out of 



92 ' EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

which 33 failed to germinate. The cultivator obtained four 
gallons of good wheat from the land, exclusive of several of the 
finest plants, which he saved. The usual number of stems from 
each seed was 18 to 20 ; a considerable number gave 30 to 35, 
and one was counted which had 40 full-sized stems, and three 
of a smaller size. The straw from the 34 yards weighed 72 
pounds, which would be 284 trusses of 36 pounds to the acre. 
The -weight of the 682 corns planted was 17 di'achms. This 
being multiplied by 142, the land being the l-142d part of an 
acre, gave about 9]: pounds as seed for the acre ; consequently 
one bushel of wheat, at 63 pounds per bushel, would plant more 
than six acres. The produce of 4 gallons, multiplied, as above, 
by 142, gives the great quantity of 71 bushels, or 17 sacks 3 
bushels, to the acre. The ground had borne potatoes the previous 
year, and had received no top-dressing, nor been in any way 
manured for the wheat. A sample of the wheat, which has 
been kindly sent to me, in the straw, and which 1 have de- 
posited in the museum of the Royal Agricultural Society, was 
six feet in height. 

These are remarkable facts. What has been done can be 
done. They forbid our resting satisfied with what has been 
accomplished ; and they encourage the hope that the productive 
powers of the soil are vastly greater than have yet been deter- 
mined. Onward ! is the watchword of the present day, in every 
department of science and art. Why should agriculture form an 
exception ? Away with the drones ! Do not let us mistake a 
fog-bank for land, nor think that we have reached the end of 
the voyage until our feet actually press the solid ground. 

The allotments referred to above I have myself had the satis- 
faction of inspecting, and add, with great pleasure, my humble 
testimony to the skill, industry, and good conduct, with which 
they are managed. Indeed, in many respects, I do not know 
where they can be exceeded. The establishments presented 
striking examples of the most exact economy. Three of the 
parties had been driven by their necessities into the workhouses, 
principally, however, owing to accidental injuries and sickness; 
but now, instead of being dependent upon public support, they 
were paying punctually a full rent for their land, and were pro- 
curing an honest and comfortable living from their own industry. 
Another of the families, presenting one of the most beautiful and 



ALLOTJIENT SYSTEM. 93 

aiiecting examples of indefatigable industry, of severe economy, 
and of grateful and religious contentment, wliicli I have ever 
witnessed, said, with their eyes flooded witli tears, that they 
had been saved from the workhouse — a fate which many of the 
poor seem to dread almost as much as death itself — only by the 
kindness of their beneficent })roprietor in leasing them the land, 
and in furnishing them with tools and with cows to commence 
their operations. Besides supporting themselves and their child, 
they had also suppoited an aged father and mother ; and had 
nearly paid a debt of twenty pounds to the physician, incurred 
by a sickness of three years, of the man himself, before he had 
the allotment ; and the whole of which they were determined 
fully to discharge. They expressed themselves but too happy 
in being able to assist and succor their aged parents, who, in 
time of his illness, took the kindest care of them. In no condi- 
tion of life have I seen a brighter example, without any preten- 
sions and without ostentation, of some of the highest virtues 
which can adorn the human character. An inflexible rule with 
them was, not to incur even the smallest debt for any thing. 
The matter of medical relief must, of course, form an exception. 
This same man, living in a poor village, where it would seem 
that education was never more wanting, had proposed, after the 
plan of the others, to keep a school, and assist himself by the 
labor of the children ; but a principal farmer in the neighborhood, 
disconcerted by the extraordinary success of this humble family 
in sustaining themselves independent of his aid, had threatened 
his laborers, if they sent their children to this school, they should 
be dismissed from his employment, and so prevented it. It is to 
be hoped, for the honor of human nature, that examples of such 
sold brutality are rare. 

Three of these tenants have been kind enough to furnish me 
with their accounts of the products of the last year, (1843,) which 
will, I think, not be without interest to my readers. 

Mr. Crittenden has five acres of land, of which the following 
is the produce for the year 1843, He adds, in respect to it, " I 
have not put in the corn, roots, and hay, which the cows and 
pigs consume, as they answer to them in their milk and flesh." 



94 KUROPEAN AGRICULTLJIE. 

" WiLLiNGDON, March 4, 1844. 
"The produce of my land, five acres, the last year, (1843,) 
being the quantity and the price : — 

£. s. d. 

8 qt. 6 bu. of wheat, at 52 s. per qt 22 15 

3 " " of oats, at 21s. per qt 3 3 

1 " 6 " of barley, at 30 s. per qt 2 12 6 

1 " '' of peas, at 34 s. per qt. ...... 1 14 

120 bushels of potatoes, at 1 s. per bushel, ... 600 

1 large hog sold for 4 15 

1 small do 156 

1 calf, sold young, 1 10 

1 hog for self, 25 stone, 3 15 

Butter and milk, 11 

1 calf, reared for a cow, 2 10 

1 young sow, 200 

£63 
Rent, 25 

38 
1 qt. of tail wheat, worth £2, which we eat, ... 200 

Total, £40 0" 

I subjoin the letter with Avhich he has favored me : — 

" Sir, 

" I send you the rotation of cropping for six years, which 
I adopt myself; likewise the kinds and quantity which I sow, for 
two cows and a heifer, on my five acres. First, I sow about one 
and a half acres of wheat, which I drill in. about nine inches apart 
between di'ills, I sow two and a half bushels to the acre. Then 
I sow one acre with clover in the spring, — about three gallons 
of seed to the acre, — in order to cut for the cows green, and the 
rest for hay for the winter ; this is the best food that I can get. 
It may be cut three times. Second, one acre of either oats or 
barley that I drill in, as every thing drilled is so much best for 
the boys to work amongst, and likewise a saving of seed. 
Third, I sow about twenty rods of rye, and sixty rods of winter 
tares, in September, for the cows in the spring, and they will 
come off soon enough for potatoes or turnips ; after them, then it 



ALLOTMENT bYsTEM. 



95 



comes ill for wheat. I sow the ry(! and tares broadcast, as it 
should be thick on the ground. Fourtli, 1 sow the rest of the 
ground with swedes, turnips, mangel-wurzel, carrots, and pota- 
toes, for winter food ; the mangel-wurzel produces a great deal 
of food for the cows, if the leaves are taken off properly. 

" I leave a piece of ground for spring tares, to come in after the 
winter tares. I sow these in February. 

" This will keep two cows and a heifer all the year round, if 
tiiey are stall-fed. 



" Rotation of Crops 





First Division. 


Second Division. 


1845. 


Wheat 


Rye and tares. 


—46. 


Clover 


Wheat. 


—47. 


Wheat 


Clover. 


—48. 


Turnips and mangel-wurzel. 


Wheat, 


—49. 


Oats or barley. . . . ] 


Turnips, mangel-wurzel, 
carrots, 


—50. 


Potatoes 


Oats or barley. 




l^hird Divisioii. 


Fourth Division. 


1845. 


Oats or barley 


Wheat. 


—46. 
—47. 


Rye and tares 

Wheat 


Turnips, mangel-wurzel. 
Oats or barley. 


—48. 


Clover 


Potatoes. 


—49. 


Wheat 


Wheat. 


—50. 


Turnips, mangel-wurzel. ) 
carrots, > 


Clover. 




F\flh Division. 


Sixth Division. 


1845. 

—46. 
—47. 
—48. 
—49. 


Spring tares and turnips. < 

Wheat 

Turnips, mangel, turnips. . 

Oats or barley 

Potatoes 


Mangel-wurzel, carrots, 

swedes, turnips. 
Oats or barley. 
Rye and tares. 
Wheat. 
Clover. 


—50. 


Wheat 


Wheat," 



The next account which I shall present is that of Mr. Dum- 
brell, at the village of .Tevington, Sussex county, who occupies 



96 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

six acres and a quarter. The products of the years 1841 and 
1842 are already given. The following is for 1843 : — 

Six Aci^es and a quarter, 1843. 

£. s. d. 

Two calves, 4 10 

Peas, 3 bushels 3 gallons, at 4 s. 6 d 15 2 

Wheat, 47^ bushels, 5 s. 6 d 13 1 3 

Barley, 10 bushels, at 4 s 200 

Tares, 6 bushels, at 4 s. 6 d 1 7 

Oats, 66 bushels, at 2 s. 3 d 7 8 6 

Butter, 3643 lbs., at lid 16 14 4| 

Potatoes, 200 bushels, at 1 s 10 

Milk, sold, 800 

Total, . . . £63 16 3i 

He adds, in his letter to me, " You may be surprised at my 
not making more from six acres and a quarter, than I did, in 
proportion, from three acres and a quarter ; but it is to be under- 
stood that, since my farm was made up to six acres and a quarter, 
the products, as the two last tables show, have not sold so well. 
and the last three acres, which were added to my farm, were very 
poor soil." 

I give next the report of last year's crop, which has been sent 
me by John Harris, as the products of the labors of himself and 
his scholars. He adopts the same system of spade husbandry, 
and the application of liquid manure to his crops. His allotment 
comprehends five acres only. 

One acre and twelve rods of wheat produced . . 53 bushels. 

Half an acre of oats, 61 " 

Thirty rods of barley. 13^ " 

Twenty rods of peas, 4^ " 

One acre of potatoes, 404 " 

Half an acre of turnips, 150 " 

Sixteen rods of carrots, 3J tons. 

Fifteen rods of mangeMvurzel, ....... 3 " 

The rest of his land was occupied with green food for his 
cows : such as cabbages, rye, clover, tares, &c. He kept two 
cows. He had from eight to twelve pigs all winter, and they 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 97 

consumed all his potatoes, and his turnips, mangel-wiurzel, and 
carrots, were given to his cows. He fatted one hundred and 
twenty stone, or nine hundred and sixty pounds of pork, which 
he sold to the butcher. He sold six shotes, at three months old, 
for stores, and one pig for roasting ; and he sold also one sow in 
pig, for £2 12 s. He kept no account of the produce of his 
cows. 

Several things are remarkable in regard to these allotments 
and modes of management. In the first place, they are all culti- 
vated by the spade. Where labor is abundant, as in England. 
and the great difficulty is to know how to employ it with advan- 
tage, this might be attempted even upon a large scale. The 
expense of horses upon a farm is always a great consideration : 
and especially upon small farms, the expense of horses, compared 
with the amount of product, is very great, and absorbs a large 
proportion of the income. It is estimated by many intelligent 
farmers in England, that the horse-teams require for their main- 
tenance full one fourth of the produce of the soil. I propose 
presently to discuss this whole subject of brute labor upon a 
farm, and shall therefore go no farther at present than to add my 
conviction, that the expense of their horse-teams in England, the 
cost of their horses, which, after a certain age, is always a de- 
teriorating capital, the expense of theii' maintenance, shoeing, 
harness, &c. &c., constitute a most serious drawback to the pros- 
perity of English farmers, and that some little of this may be 
charged to the vanity of display, and the ambition of extraordi- 
nary size. Whatever it may be, on these allotments it is all 
saved ; the labor, Avith the exception of the working of the cow 
on one allotment, is all human. 

The second observation, which occurred to me, was the extra- 
ordinary pains taken in saving the manure. Nothing was wasted. 
The animals were stall-fed, and kept constantly in the stable, and 
a small brick or stone tank, well cemented Avith lime, was sunk 
near the cow stable, and near the pigstye, which received all the 
liquid manure ; and the contents of these tanks, on their becom- 
ing full, were pumped into a small cart, with a sprinkling-box 
attached to it, like that used for the watering of streets in cities, 
and distributed over the crops, always with the greatest advan- 
tage, and with effects immediately perceptible. The tanks in 
tliis case were quite small, because the stock was small, and 
9 



98 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

made, with little expense, of common stone laid in lime, and 
having a wooden cover for security on the top. They were well 
cemented within, and might be emptied by a pump, or dipped 
out with a bucket. 

An eminent farmer in Yorkshire has lately stated that he has, 
within the last ten years, made three tanks upon his farm, for the 
purj)0se of receiving the liquid manure. The first he made con- 
tained forty cubic yards of liquid, but he had enlarged it to one 
hundred and fifty yards, which was filled three times a year, by 
the produce of his farm. He is satisfied, from his experience, that 
thirty cubic yards of this liquid manure would cause it to pro- 
duce as heavy a crop as any other manure which could be 
applied to it. With the manure which flowed into the tank, he 
had manured twelve acres ; and this had produced heavy crops of 
grass, which he had mowed three times, and then there was an 
abundance, which he mowed late in the season and gave to his 
horses. This he had found to be the case upon land which had 
not been pastured for nine years, but always been mown. 

I shall not oflend any truly sensible person, if I add that the 
most careful provision is made for the saving of all the human 
excrements, by a movable tub placed under the seat of the water- 
closet, and concealed by a door, which is carefully emptied and 
cleansed daily, and thus saved from being offensive. This is 
always mixed with soil, and, in the experience of one of the 
farmers, cannot be safely applied to the land until it is a year old. 
Of the value of this source of manure, now, in many cases, much 
worse than thrown away, I shall subjoin some curious calcula- 
tions in a note, which my reader, being forewarned, may peruse 
or not, at his pleasure.* 

* The committee for buildingf a Lunatic Asylum, at Derby, proposed to Mr. 
Haywood, an agricultural chemist of much talent and experience, tlie inquiry as 
to the results which "the manure obtained from a given number of patients is 
capable of producing, in the growth of crops, supposing tlie entire drainage of the 
establishment to be applied to this use." 

To this Mr. Haywood replied in a very elaborate and scientific report, with a 
copy of which he favored me ; from which 1 shall quote a few paragraphs. 

"The great object of my inquiry is, to ascertain what quantity of arable land, 
in the present four-course system of cultivation, can be kept in a constant state 
of fertility by the application of all the excretions, botli liquid and solid, which are 
produced by a certain number of individuals, togetlier with the minor fertilizing 
substances which tlie pro|)er management of a large domestic establishment is 
capable of producing; also to give, as accurately, as possible, tlie extent of land 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 99 

The third circumstance remarkable in the case was, that the 
cows are fed in the stalls, and never turned out. The principal 
food given them was clover, tares, or rye cut green ; the leaves 
of mangel-wurzel, and, in the winter, turnips, mangel-wurzel, 
carrots, (tec, and straw. The cows were in good condition, and 
though evidently not of a character to promise much milk, yet 
the health of the animals was perfect. They were not selected, 

which can be kept in the same state of fertility by the excrements of a certain 
number of horses, cows, and sheep. 

" The course I have adopted in this inquiry has been, in the first place, to 
ascertain the average quantity of food, both animal and vegetable, consumed by a 
certain number of individuals in a given time, and from a knowledge of the com- 
position of such food to deduce the composition of the excrements, and afterwards 
apply this to the composition of crops ; for it is now universally admitted that all 
those elementary constituents which enter into the composition of plants or 
animals, are primarily derived from tlie air or tlie soil, and that whatever be the 
quantity of elementary constituents taken in the food of an adult man, in a given 
time, the same quantity of these constituents will again be eliminated from his 
system by the lungs, skin, kidneys, and intestines, in the same time. If, therefore, 
we preserve tlie whole of the excretions made by an individual in a given time, 
we preserve tlie whole of tlie elements of the food he has consumed in that time, 
and, by applying these to land, sliould be able to produce again the same amount 
of food in the form of corn and potatoes, together with an extra quantity of vege- 
table matter, which, being consumed by a growing animal, would yield an equiva- 
lent amount of flesh ; and these changes would be continued ad infinitum. 

" It fortunately happens that those constituents of food which are eliminated by 
tlie lungs are derived solely from tlie atmosphere, and, as there is an inexhaustible 
supply of these in tlie atmosphere, no restoration of them to a soil is required. 
On the other hand, tliose eliminated by the kidneys and intestines, are derived 
exclusively from the soil, and, consequently, require restoring, in order to main- 
tain its fertility." 

# » * » *• # # 

" Thus we export from the fifty acres of wheat and barley, and the fifty acres 
of green crops, by one hundred young lambs, forty yearlings, four young cows, 
four calves, and two horses, the following quantity of those constituents of a soil 
which enter into the composition of plants : — 

Potash and soda, 780 lbs. 

Lime and magnesia, 948 " 

Phosphoric acid, 1549 " 

Sulphates and chlorides, 21 " 

Silica, 450 « 

Metallic oxides, 8 " 

Nitrogen, 2681 " 

"it will be seen from tlie tables of the constituents of food, tliat the ingredients 
contained in the liquid and solid excrements of one hundred individuals, and the 



100 EUROPKAN AGRICULTUKE. 

but chance animals ; in one case, the yield had averaged seven 
pounds of butter each, per week ; in another case, nine pounds 
had been obtained, when another cow, which was grazed in the 
pasture, yielded a very inferior quantity. The cows stood in 
well-ventilated stalls, in one case upon a stone pavement, in 
another upon hard-trodden earth ; were well littered, and kept 
quite clean. The whole of the manure is saved in this way, and 

bones preserved from their food, exceed the above quantity in every substance 
except nitrogen and silica ; but the deficiency in these substances will be much 
more than compensated by the atmosphere in the former case, and by the soil in 
the latter ; so that I should not have the least hesitation in saying that the excre- 
ments of one hundred inmates of your Asylum, or any other, where the supply of 
food is similar to tlie above, would keep one hundred acres of land on the common 
four-course system of rotation in a constant state of fertility. It appears from the 
calculations I have made, that for every two hundred and fifty pounds of flesh 
produced, the elements of one acre of ground are extracted annually on the four- 
course system, and assimilated by the animals consuming it ; from which it follows, 
that for every additional two hundred and fifty pounds of flesh produced, above 
the quantity here given, the entire excretions of one man will be required. I 
liave purposely omitted the pigs in the above account, as they would live entirely 
on the grains from tlie breAvhouse and the refuse from the kitchen. 

" Should you think it feasible to grow a succession of wheat crops, witliout any 
intermission of green food, then the above quantity of ingredients would very well 
supply sixty acres. The object of growing crops of turnips, clover, &c., is to 
allow time for those constituents of white crops which exist in the soil, in an 
insoluble state, to become soluble by the action of the atmosphere in suflicient 
quantity to supply them. Were the whole of tliese added annually to a soil in 
the form of manure, no rest would be required, and a succession of white crops 
might thus be produced indefinitely. The cause of this not having been profita- 
bly accomplished hitliertb, is not so much from any difficulty which attends it, as 
from unwillingness on the part of the farmer, or his ignorance of the mode of 
proceeding. Had a portion of those liquid manures, which are suffered to run to 
waste, from every town and farm-yard in the kingdom, been used for this purpose, 
success would in all cases have attended the experiment; for these contain the 
Yti-]l elements, which are rendered soluble in every soil by the year's rest, and 
which, being assimilated by tiie plant, and afterwards removed in tlie grain, are 
allowed to run to tvastt in the following year." 

I cannot with entire confidence endorse Mr. Haywood's views, especially on 
the theory of vegetation, in respect to tlie cultivation of the same crops in succes- 
sion, on the same soil. It cannot be said to be yet determined whether a change 
of crop is rendered necessary by the abstraction of certain ingredients of tlie soil, 
which are again supplied to it by the influence of the atmosphere upon it when in 
a state of rest, or by the excretions of the crop, according to the notions of Decan- 
dolle, which are poisonous to a crop of tlie same kind coming in immediate succes- 
sion ; but the quotations which I have given from his paper show the workings of 
a laborious and inquisitive mind, upon a homely, and at the Same time an impor- 
tant subject. 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 101 

the amount is much beyond what would be thought, where the 
experiment had not been made. 

There was another economical arrangement here, which 
attracted my attention. Two or three of the allotments, with 
their buildings, were on elevated land, where wells could not be 
sunk but at great expense, and a supply of water would be un- 
certain. In this case, tanks were formed about eight feet in 
diameter, by twelve in depth, into which the rain water from the 
roof of the house and the stable attached to the house was led ; 
and thus, as experience had proved, an ample supply of pure 
water was obtained for the use of the family and the stock, at a 
small expense. These tanks were surmounted with a cast-iron 
frame, which furnished a strong cover and a small windlass by 
which the water was drawn. These tanks were formed of stone 
found upon the place, laid in mortar, and carefully cemented by 
gray lime mortar. 

The cows were kept in a stable connected with the house, 
over which were the school-room and the threshing-floor. The 
grain, with the hay that was cut, of which there was very little, 
was stacked out of doors ; and the cows were fed, almost exclu- 
sively, in winter, upon turnips or mangel-wurzel and straw. T 
have no doubt a more liberal feeding would have been found 
profitable, but they were under the necessity of getting along 
with the most limited and simple resources. 

This management showed conclusively, in the fourth place, 
that, where the resources are all carefully husbanded, and the 
produce consumed upon the farm, the land is capable of keeping 
itself in condition. The grain which was grown here was 
mainly sold in order to pay the rent ; but the rest of the produce 
was used for the animals within doors and without. The crops 
were certainly good ; the wheat yielding about forty bushels per 
acre, and the potatoes from three to four hundred bushels. The 
clover was usually mowed three times in a season, and the first 
mowing was made into hay for winter resource ; the lucern was 
fed green, and was mowed five times. The success of the crop 
depended much, without doubt, upon the immediate application 
of the liquid manure. A rotation of crops is made absolute by 
the conditions of the lease, so that two white crops may not 
follow each other without the intervention of a green crop. The 
clover crop of Mr. Cruttenden had suffered a good deal from the 
9# 



102 EUKOPEAN AtiRKLLTL'IlJ:. 

wire-worm, which he attributed to keeping the crop two years 
on the ground. I do not know how far the supposition is well 
founded, but it deserves attention. A great problem, then, is here 
solved, if, to any intelligent minds, it has been matter of question, 
that, where the product is consumed upon a farm, it may be 
made to furnish an ample supply of the means not only for 
maintaining but improving its condition. I do not say that 
manures may not often be purchased to a great advantage ; and un- 
doubtedly a supply from other sources is indispensable where mucli 
of the produce is sold from the farm. I have no doubt, likewise, 
that even these small farmers would find their account in extend- 
ing their live stock, and purchasing oil-cake, which makes a most 
enriching manure, or other substances, for their consumption. A 
farmer in Lincolnshire, of whose successful management I shall 
presently give a full account, is of an opinion that his profits 
have regularly increased in proportion to the quantity of oil-cake 
which he has purchased for the consumption of his stock. There 
are, undoubtedly, many cases in which the application of mineral 
manures may be both useful and indispensable, and fully repay 
any reasonable outlay which may be required for their purchase. 
It is not certain that even these small farmers had availed them- 
selves of all the resources within their reach. Nor had either of 
them any advantage from the clearing out of ditches, from bog- 
mud, or from deposits of marl. Nor had either of them, that I 
could learn, made any experiments in turning in green crops with 
a view to enriching the soil. The experiments, therefore, must 
still be considered as imperfect, and yet conclusive as to the 
recuperative power of the soil from the economical use and 
application of the results of its own products. This teaches a 
lesson to large farmers of the highest importance ; for, while trade 
and commerce depend, to a considerable degree, upon large invest- 
ments and successful adventures, the success of agricultural 
operations depends most essentially upon the limitation of unpro- 
ductive expenses, and the most careful application and use of the 
products of the farm. In too many cases it happens, as Scott has 
described the farming operations of Triptolemus Yellowley, " the 
carles and the cart-avers make it all, and the carles and 
cart-avers eat it all." 

It was another beautiful circumstance in the case, that three of 
these individuals, who, with their families, were now subsisting 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 



103 



independently upon the fruits of their own labor, had been ten- 
ants of an alms-house, where their spirits were broken down, 
their children separated from them, husband and wife divided, 
and all power of mending their condition eflectually taken away. 
New life was imparted to them as soon as they were uncaged, 
and an opportunity afforded of obtaining from the prolific earth, 
by their own willing labor, that support which Heav(jn formed it 
to yield to well-directed industry. Separate from all moral con- 
siderations, instead of being a burden and an expense to the 
community, they now became themselves aids to bear these 
burdens and to share in these expenses. This was an immense 
gain ; and, regarded by a reflecting mind in all its various bear- 
ings upon the community and upon themselves, its value cannot 
be overstated. 

There was another circumstance in the case, to which I cannot 
help referring with peculiar pleasure ; and that is, the provision 
made by the labor of the boys for their own education. The 
education, it is true, is of a very limited description. It embraces 
only reading, Avriting, the first principles or rules of arithmetic, 
and instruction in the elements and formularies of the established 
religion. Even this was a great gain. To be taught even the 
use of their own minds, in the acquisition of knowledge, is a great 
gain ; to have even a few scattered rays of intellectual light 
poured into the darkened soul, may call into powerful exercise the 
desire of knowledge, which will impatiently search for the means 
of further gratification, and invent resources for itself. Its eff"ect 
must be to elevate a human being, from a mere senseless imple- 
ment or machine, into a consciousness of his own intellectual 
nature, and bring with it a degree of self-respect, which, in its 
humblest form, cannot but be favorable to good conduct and 
virtue. But the children found at these schools, in addition to 
mental instruction, that which many schools of a higher descrip- 
tion do not furnish. They were trained to habits of regular and 
useful industry, instructed in the arts of husbandry, and in the 
most intelligent and economical application of labor. To what 
better school could they be sent ? Under what better discipline 
could they be trained ? I can fully understand how much in 
this case, as in all others, must depend upon the character of the 
teacher ; and I can easily suppose that it may be necessary often, 
especially in a first attempt like this, to work with very imperfect 



V 



104 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

instruments. But while every proper precaution is taken to 
secure a good moral character in the teacher, and all practicable 
guards are placed over his conduct by his success being made 
entirely dependent upon its correctness, a good deal, certainly, is 
done ; and better minds, and persons of higher qualifications, from 
the success of these experiments, may presently be induced to 
seek these situations, in a country where the means of subsist- 
ence and profitable employment are, from the redundance of the 
population, becoming every day more difficult. 

It is to be regretted that the farmers in general — perhaps it 
would be more just to say, that many farmers — look with very ill- 
humor upon the allotment system, and are opposed to granting 
land for these objects, even when their landlords desire it. I have 
found no instance of a landlord opposed to it, though I have 
found with them a prevalent disposition to limit the allotment to 
a very small size. I am not willing to impute motives where 
they are not avowed. I have seen too many instances of the 
highest and best minds acting under very partial and mistaken 
views, in a manner unworthy of them, to allow me to commit 
myself by any harsh judgment. The farmers, it is said, are 
prejudiced against allotments, because the crops obtained under 
this limited and minute cultivation throw their own inferior crops 
into the shade, or, by demonstrating what the land is capable of 
producing, may induce their landlords to raise their rents. It is 
alleged, further, that the farmers are not willing in any way to 
diminish the dependence of the laborers upon their favor, as it 
might give them the power of demanding a higher rate of wages. 
The farmers, in the next place, it is said, are not willing that 
their laborers should appear in the public markets as sellers of 
produce, which, if the competition was not to be regarded as 
affecting prices, yet it might inspire them with a hurtful sense of 
their own importance. I report here only the suggestions of 
others, and presume to hazard no judgment. The motives 
named are, alas ! but too consistent with the weakness and the 
too often unrestrained selfishness of human nature. Every man, 
certainly, has a fair right " to live ; " and the duty of every just 
man is " to let him live." ' Blessed will be the day, if come it ever 
should, when every man will learn that his own true prosperity 
is essentially concerned in the prosperity of his neighbor, and 
that no gratification on earth, to a good mind, is more delicious 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 105 

than that which is reflected from the happiness of another, to 
which he has been himself instrumental. I hope my readers 
will not consider these reflections misplaced. ^ir~is"~evident that 
the farmers have no direct pecuniary interest in the success of 
their laborers, as far as that success might save them from be- 
coming a tax upon the public. y This tax, though always assessed 
by the farmers as guardians of the poor, is yet always paid by 
the landlord. It is collected from the farmer ; but the amount of 
rent which he pays for his land is always regulated by the 
amount of taxes by which the land is burdened. If any of the 
motives which have been assigned do prevail with the farmers, one 
can scarcely exaggerate the meanness and unworthiness of such 
motives, and can only desire that these persons may have juster 
views of what they owe to themselves, and to those whom the 
dispensations of Providence have made in a degree dependent 
upon their favor. 

I am sorry to add my strong conviction, that the education of 
the laboring classes is not viewed with favor by some who move 
in a higher condition of life ; at least that they consider it of 
doubtful value, and are desirous of keeping it within the most 
restricted limits. There are, indeed, many noble minds, who, 
properly appreciating its immense value, are willing to impart as 
liberally as they have themselves received, and heartily aid all 
efl"orts to extend its advantages to every individual in the com- 
munity ; but this feeling does not appear to me general. Every 
allowance is to be made for a condition of society where diff'erenl 
ranks are established ; where the lines of demarkation are main- 
tained with extreme pertinacity ; where there can be no high 
rank but as there is a low one ; and where, according to the 
depression of the one, the elevation of the other seems increased. 
Every approach, therefore, in this direction, is likely to be resisted : 
and this feeling of superiority pervades, with an almost equal 
intensity, every class in society, above the lowest, from the master 
of the household to the most menial beneath whom there is any 
lower depth. Education is the great leveller of all artificial 
distinctions, and may, therefore, well be looked upon with 
jealousy. 

There is wanting, likewise, that just appreciation of the value 
and benefits of universal education, which can hardly be looked 
for but among those who have lived in a community where its 



106 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 



facilities and advantages are enjoyed by every individual as freely 
as the sunshine and the rain. « While I am writing, a highly- 
respectable clergyman, not wanting in a benevolent regard for his 
fellow-men, has said to me that '' the most limited education is 
all that is wanted for these persons, as more would make them 
discontented with their condition; and if they can read their 
Bibles and prayer-books, it is quite sufficient ;'^" and this same re- 
mark I have heard several times from others,.^ I cannot say that 
I have not heard the education of the lower classes spoken of, by 
persons apparently respectable, in very harsh terms, and in terms 
with which I should be unwilling to stain my pages. I will only 
add that I deem such views entirely erroneous and unfounded. If, 
indeed, there are good reasons for the laborers being discontented 
with their conditiou, let the evils of it be remedied. But if it 
be a discontent arising from circumstances of hardship — if so they 
must be deemed — which no human power can remedy, education, 
besides furnishing in itself resources to mitigate these evils, will 
serve to give them more just views of human life, and to recon- 
cile them to a condition which the divine Providence has made 
inevitable. If education has a tendency to make persons discon- 
tented with their condition, is it not equally objectionable in 
respect to other classes in the community who find others above 
them ? and in truth, as far as my own observation goes, the rich 
and the elevated are quite as subject to discontent as the poor 
and restricted, from whom the luring baits of ambition and 
avarice are absolutely withheld. 

That condition of society is of all others most favorable to 
improvement, and to the development of the best elements 
of human nature, where every means of improvement is fnr- 
nished without restraint, and where men become the creators of 
their own fortune. The favorite maxim of the great French 
emperor was, "Let the career be open to talents." In New 
England, this great principle every where prevails ; and here, 
where the advantages of education are freely offered to all, and 
the highest conditions of influence and honor are equally acces- 
sible to all, it may be safely asserted that no evils have grown 
out of it, and that its moral and social influences have been the 
best which the most philanthropic could have desired. In New 
England, where, even among the most humble classes of society, 
the literary attainments are often respectable, there will be found 



ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 107 

among those Ciasses the most devoted friends to public order, and 
the most stanch supporters of her social institutions. I trust I 
shall not be thought to speak with an undue enthusiasm in 
saying, that the time has now come when there should be recog- 
nized in every human form a moral and an immortal mind ; that 
the ore in this quarry should be brought out and polished ; and 
that the higher conditions of life will be themselves elevated, and 
the whole community advantaged, by all improvement of the 
lower classes. The subsoil plough is deemed the great discovery 
of modern agriculture ; and by bringing the lower strata up, and 
mingling them with the siuface soil, and exposing them to the 
same genial influences of sunshine and air, it will not be denied 
that the whole, without injury to any, has been rendered the 
more productive. 

The experiments of the public-spirited proprietor of these allot- 
ments have been perfectly successful in a pecuniary view. I 
have seen the accounts. The rents have been paid with punc- 
tuality. There has been no distress levied, and, among upwards 
of four hundred tenants, scarcely an instance of failure to pay. 
The rents demanded have been fully equal to those received for 
lands in the vicinity, of the same quality, held in large farms ; in- 
deed, they have exceeded them. At starting, she has found it 
necessary to assist her poor tenants in the purchase of tools and 
stock ; but these obligations are required to be liquidated. 

The allotments are held in the following amounts : — 

[n 4 rod pieces, 3 ; in 13 rod pieces, 1 ; in ^ acre, 13 ; 

u e a 

ii J II 

« 8 " 

" 9 " 

" 10 " 

u 12 " 

Total, 421 allotments. Amount of rent received, -£428 8 s. Sjd. 
This is without houses or barns, the rent of which is a separate 
charge. 

Of the occupants, the following are stated to be the number in 
the families supported from the land, with the exception of the 
small income from the instruction money. 



5; 


" 16 


5; 


" 20 


75; 


" 24 


8; 


" 30 


6; 


" 40 


71; 


" 60 



1; 




S 


" 2; 


75; 




1 


" 22; 


2; 




2 


acres, 9 ; 


5; 




4 


" 2; 


08; 




5 


" 5; 


2; 




9 


" 1. 



108 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

4 acres, 4 persons in family ; 3 acres, 6 persons in family ; 
Q 'i Y " '' " 5 '■ 9 " " " 

5 <£ J ii a a 5 " 6 " " " 

39 persons ; 28 acres. 

I submit these facts to my American friends as exceedingly 
curious. With us the land is not locked up by patents, entail, or 
mortmain. With us land is every where attainable, and at prices 
which bring it within the reach of every industrious and frugal 
man. But it will, I think, be interesting to look at these humble 
instances of domestic economy ; and they must stimulate the 
most useful inquiry into the productive capacities of the land, 
Avhich seem as yet to be very imperfectly developed. We are, 
likewise, not without our poor in the United States ; and the vast 
influx of destitute emigrants is constantly augmenting the number. 
For idleness and profligacy there is no just claim upon public 
compassion ; but I am convinced that a considerable portion of 
the poor would be glad to earn their own living if they could be 
put in the way of doing it. Whatever contributes to this object 
confers a public benefit. 

It would be wrong for me to quit this topic without adding, 
that, since m.y First Report, I have visited portions of the country 
where, on the estates of some very large proprietors, (to one of 
whom the United States and Great Britain are under the highest 
obligations for adjusting their conflicting claims, and through 
whose beautiful grounds I rode eight continuous miles,) the 
cottages of the laborers were of the very best description ; and 
their establishments, both within and without doors, indicated the 
greatest neatness and comfort. Gardens for fruit, vegetables, and 
flowers, were attached to all of them ; and they were charming 
pictures of rural taste and embellishment. Many of these persons 
had likewise small allotments of land. The wages paid to the 
men were from 10 s. to 12 s. per week, and to the women 8 d. 
per day while at work. This, of course, however, with the 
ciurent expenses of living, did not allow them to accumulate any 
thing for sickness or old age. During the four weeks of harvest, 
by working by the piece, the laborer would sometimes earn more 
than 20 s. per week ; and the women and children, by gleaning the 
scattered heads of wheat after the field is cleared of the crop, or, as 



(QUANTITY OF SEKD. 109 

it is here called, by lecsing, not infrequently collect four or five 
bushels of grain. I have met with instances, \vherc even more 
has been collected. Such are the fruits of the most exact 
frugality. 



XIV. — QUANTITY OF SEED. 

The quantity of seed proper to be sown has been a subject of 
much debate. There may be an excess : and an error may be 
committed by sowing too small a quantity. An intelligent 
farmer makes the following calculation of the advantage and 
saving which would come to the country, if, instead of sowing 
two and a half bushels of seed to the acre, it should be found, as 
he maintains from his own practice and experience, it is sufficient 
to sow one bushel to the acre. 

"Allowing," he says, "that, upon a fair calculation, 7,085,370 
acres are annually sown in the kingdom, in wheat, at the rate, of 
two and a half bushels per acre, which is the ordinary allowance, 
there would be required 2,214,178 quarters (eight bushels per 
([uarter) for seed. But to sow one bushel per acre, only 885,671 
(quarters would be required ; so that the annual saving of seed 
would be 10,628,056 bushels, or 5,901,192 bushels more than 
the average importation of foreign corn the last fourteen years. 
Though I merely take the instance of wheat, T am at the same 
tniie proving what may be done with all other corn ; for the 
saving of seed, which I practise, is in equal proportions with all 
other kinds of grain, and with equal success." 

The testimony of this farmer is so important that I shall be 
excused for speaking more at large on this subject. This gentle- 
man has been a practical farmer of more than seven hundred 
acres of highly-rented, poor land ; and what he recommends, he 
says, he has long and successfully practised — that he grows crops 
much larger than the general average, and on soils of inferior 
description, and with less than the ordinary expenditure of labor 
and manm-e. 

1 will allow him to speak for himself; and the results with 
him, and the account of the proportion of seed for an acre used at 
Horsham, in the experiment which I have detailed above, afford 
10 



110 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the strongest reason, if for nothing else, for making further and 
more exact trials. The subject is clearly one of the first impor- 
tance. 

" The practice thronghout England is to sow two and a half 
and three bushels per acre, and the yield is seldom forty bushels, 
and more commonly only twenty bushels ; and one tenth, at least, 
of the crop grown, is consumed in seed. These facts, and the 
knowledge that a single grain of wheat planted where it has 
room to tiller out, will readily produce four hundred fold, and 
often very much more, have induced me, in the course of the last 
eleven years, to make a variety of experiments, the results of 
which have shown me, that, independent of the waste, a positive 
and serioiis injury is done to the crop from so mnch seed ; and 
the result is perfectly analogous to attempting to feed four animals 
upon a pasture sufficient only for one ; and, in consequence, I 
have gradually reduced my proportion of seed-wheat from three 
bushels per acre, which was my practice, down to about three 
pecks, which reduction I have accomplished to the evident im- 
provement of my crops. 

"My practice is to drill every thing, (clover seed alone ex- 
cepted;) to carefully horse-hoe, hand-hoe, and weed, so that 
the land may be kept perfectly free from weeds, and the soil 
between the rows may be stirred, and receive the benefit of fine 
tilth and cultivation, of which gardeners are sensible ; but by 
farmers this is lost sight of, or not sufficiently attended to. My 
rye and tares for green feeding are sown in rows at nine-inch 
intervals ; all my white corn at twelve inches ; my pulse at 
twenty-seven inches ; and my root crops, on the ridge, at twenty- 
seven inches. 

" My proportions of seed per acre are as follows : — 

Of rye, 1^ bushel ; Of oats, 8 pecks ; 

" tares, 1^ do. ; " barley, 7 do. ; 

" mangel-wurzel, 6 lbs. ; " wheat, 3 do. ; 

" swedes, 1 quart ; " peas, 8 do. ; 

" turnips, 1 do. ; " beans, 8 do." 
*• cabbages, 1 every three feet : 

After detailing his mode of cultivation, to which I shall here- 
after refer, he goes on to say, " I have frequently produced above 



QUANTITY OF SKKD. Ill 

five quarters (forty bushels) to the acre, and have grown above 
thirteen quarters of oats, (one hundred and four bushels,) and 
above eight of barley, (forty bushels.) Having shown the suc- 
cess, on an extensive scale, with thin sowing, I will explain why 
it is that three pecks of seed-wheat must be much nearer the 
correct quantity than ten or twelve pecks ; and that any surplus 
of seed beyond a bushel must be very injurious to the latter 
growth of the crop. The produce of one ear of tliick-sown 
wheat yields about forty grains, (I say thick-sown, for thin-sown 
yields very much more,) and, therefore, the produce of an acre 
(or twenty bushels, the ordinary average) must be, no matter 
how much has been sown, the growth of the ears from one 
fortieth, or two pecks of seed, (and that, too, is allowing only one 
ear to grow from each grain, and forty grains from an ear.) 
This being the fact, of what use are, I ask, or what becomes of, 
the remaining eight or ten pecks of seed, which are commonly 
sown? But, in allowing one ear only to grow from a grain of 
seed, and each ear to contain only forty grains, I am far from 
taking what in reality would be the produce ; for a single grain, 
having room, will throw up ten or twelve ears, and these ears will 
each contain from sixty to eighty grains ; and, supposing some of 
my small allowance to be lost or destroyed, the deficiency of 
plant is immediately met by the larger size of the ear, and by 
the tillering which is made, and the additional ears so produced, 
wherever room admits of the increase. 

"Among the many proofs I have had of the advantages 
from thin sowing, the following is a striking fact : In the 
autumn of 1840, I had to sow with wheat a field of eight acres, 
and I gave out seven bushels for the seed ; but owing to an error 
of the drill-man in setting the drill, when he had sown half the 
field, he found that he had not put on half the seed ; but that 1 
might not discover, by the overplus, his error, he altered the 
drill, so as to sow the rest on the remainder of the field ; and in 
this way one half of the field had little more than two pecks to 
the acre, while the rest had nearly five pecks. I did not know 
of the error, and was surprised, in the winter, by finding part of 
the field so thin, and, had not the rest of the field looked much 
better, should have ploughed it up ; but at harvest the thinnest- 
sown half jiroved the best ; and I should never have known the 
error of sowing biu for this fact having induced the carter to 
point it out to me."' 



112 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



"At first, no matter how much seed has been sown, nearly 
every grain vegetates and finds space to grow ; and in the early 
stages, when the air and soil are moist, and the plants small, 
there is food for all. But as the plants increase, a struggle for 
room and nourishment commences, which increases with their 
growth, and finally terminates by the destruction of the weaker 
by the stronger plants ; but not until after a contest, lasting up to 
harvest, which leaves the survivors stunted, and the soil ex- 
hausted by having had to support three plants instead of one ; 
and producing mischief, which is frequently the cause of blight, 
mildew, and the falling of the crop. 

'•It is to this I would principally ascribe the mildew, and 
blight, and falling, of the crop ; for so far my practice proves it, 
that, since I have taken to sow only a bushel of wheat per acre, — 
and I have done so now for some years, and on many hundreds 
of acres of wheat, — I have rarely found any portion afi"ected by 
any disease." * 

This is certainly strong and decisive testimony, and shows 
how deserving the subject is of the most exact and repeated 
experiments. Since the foregoing account of the Horsham 
experiment of the last season, I have received information of the 
result of a second experiment made this season by the same 
individual, Mr. AUman, nursery-man of Horsham, Sussex county. 
He has dug an acre of land with spade or fork, and dibbled it 
with the same kind of wheat which he sowed the previous year, 
and the crop is fast advancing to maturity. The amount of seed 
required for planting the acre, one grain in a hole, at the distance 
of nine by six inches, was a little more than one and a half 
gallon ; the seed was covered about two inches in depth ; the 
cost of digging the ground ten inches deep was 2i d. per rod ; 
the cost of planting or dibbling the seed was 10 s. per acre, and 
the expense of hoeing it was 7 s. per acre. No manure has 
been applied to the land this year ; but of the character of the 
soil I am not informed. I am assured that it promises to yield 
as well as it did the last season. A specimen which has been 
sent to me fully ripe, shows an equal growth both in the size of 
the stalk, which is more than five feet, and in the number of 
stems from a single seed. I shall presently have an exact 

* Hewitt Davis, on tliin sowing. 



QUANTITY OF SEED. 113 

account of the result, which my readers will receive with great 
interest. The expense of dibbling by hand has been accurately 
kept, and, as above, in point of cost, would show a great saving 
in comparison with even the best machine. The increase from 
a single seed has been in some cases most extraordinary, and 
shows the prolificness — may I not properly say the unstinted 
beneficence ? — of nature. I have myself counted, from a single 
grain of wheat, ninety-five seed-bearing stems ; and I shall give 
the account of another experiment, the product of which I saw. 

A farmer, B. King, at Eastbourne, Sussex county, on the 22d 
July, 1841, planted three grains of wheat ; and one of them pro- 
duced a root with upwards of a hundred ears. 

One grain, the shoots of which were divided and transplanted 
tiDice, yielded, in 1842, three pounds twelve and three quarter 
ounces of clear grain ; and the third grain, the shoots of which 
were divided three times, yielded seven pounds fifteen ounces 
and a half. The whole product of roots from this grain was 
173 ; of ears, 3272 ; of grains, 97,028, and the weight as 
above. Half an ounce of this wheat, carefully weighed, con- 
tained 382 grains. This was the product of one grain in one 
season, which, according to what Avas required for the Horsham 
experiment, would be sufficient, in the second year, to plant two 
thirds of an acre. Of course, it is not to be expected that such an 
operation as taking up and dividing the plants could be economi- 
cally practised to any great extent ; but it shows how very 
easily and soon the seed of any valuable variety may be obtained 
with a little pains-taking. Some of the most esteemed varieties 
of wheat have been procured from the selection of a single head, 
Avhich showed in the field an extraordinary predominance over 
its neighbors. This is understood to be the origin of the cele- 
brated Chevalier barley, which was propagated from a single ear, 
found by a gentleman of that name in his field, and carefully 
cultivated. By the methods adopted above, a single head of 
v/lieat might be made, in the second year, to furnish a supply for 
acres ; and the means of speedily introducing a new grain into a 
large district of country, might be transmitted thousands of miles 
in a letter. Such are the facilities of improvement which a 
beneficent Providence offers to those who are willing to use them. 

An experiment of a similar kind was made, some years ago, by 
a Mr. Miller, and reported in the Memoirs of the Bath Agricul- 
10* 



114 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

tural Society, in which the result of the cultivation of a single 
season was even much more extraordinary than the above ; but 
it is well known to the agricultural world, and need not be 
restated. 



XV. — STEEPING SEEDS. 

I may as .well here as any where recur to an experiment ex- 
hibited at the Dundee Show, of the effect of prepared steeps for 
seed. It excited great attention on that occasion. I visited the 
grounds of the gentleman who made the experiment ; and he has 
been kind enough to write me, on the subject, a letter, which 1 
subjoin. 

"Seminaries, Dundee, 13th September, 1843. 

" Sir, 

" Since I had the pleasure of meeting you in Edinburgh, 
I have thought a good deal about the way in which I ought to 
proceed as to concealing for a time, or at once revealing, my 
method of preparing seeds, so as to produce superior crops of 
grain. I have at last determined that the better way is to make 
the process known to the heads of agricultural societies. 

" In accordance with this resolution, I have written to the 
Duke of Richmond, as president of both the National Agricultural 
Institutions of Great Britain, and to the president of the Royal 
Agricultural Improvement Society of Ireland, disclosing the 
processes which I have used ; and I now do the same to you, as 
agricultural commissioner from the United States. 

" I consider this plan better, in every respect, than sending 
prepared specimens of seeds, as the applications for these might 
soon become too numerous to be attended to. 

" The specimens of growing corn, which I exhibited at the 
show here, were the produce of seeds steeped in sulphate, nitrate, 
and iimriate of ammonia ; nitrates of soda and potass, and coin- 
binations of these. It was objected by some that the tallest 
specimens of oats were too rank, and would break down before 
coming to the ripened seed. I should by no means be afraid of 
such a result, as the stems were strong in proportion to their 



STEEPING SEEDS. 115 

height ; but should there even be some reason in the objection, 
the result might be modified by a modification of the process. 
The tallest oats were prepared from sulphate of ammonia, 
and I am convinced, from experiment, that the addition of a por- 
tion, say one half, of sulphate of soda, or sulphate of potass, 
would so modify the growth as to make the stalks moderately 
high, and at the same time preserve the superior productiveness 
of the seed. 

" The barley, which, you may perhaps recollect, consisted of an 
average of ten stems from one seed, and thirty-foiur grains on 
each stem, was the produce of seeds steeped in nitrate of ammo- 
nia. I may mention that the best illustration of the comparative 
productiveness of prepared and unprepared seed was exhibited by 
the contrast of wheat, sown 5th July, which, by the 10th of 
August, the last day of the show, presented the following results : 
the prepared seeds had tillered into nine, ten, and eleven stems ; 
the unprepared into only tico, three, and /o«r; and both were from 
the same sample of seed, and sown in the same soil, side by 
side, 

" The various salts above specified were made by me from 
their carbonates, and were exactly neutralized. 1 then added 
from eight to twelve measures of water. The time of steeping 
varied from fifty to ninety-four hours, at a temperature of about 
60° Fahrenheit. 

" Barley, I found, does not succeed with more than sixty 
hours' steeping. Rye-grass, and other cultivated grasses, may 
do very well with from sixteen to twenty hours ; but clovers will 
not do with more than eight or ten hours, for, being bilobate, 
the seeds are apt to burst in swelling. 

" On the 16th ultimo, I caused four cart-loads of earth, dug 
from about six feet under the surface, to be laid over tilly ground, 
and spread there, and in this virgin soil, totally destitute of any 
organic matter, I sowed seeds of oats and barley prepared in 
seven different ways; but, having to leave on the 31st, I could 
not form a correct estimate of the comparative progress of the 
seeds, as the season is far advanced, and vegetation slow ; 
but, if in health, I shall revisit the place in October, and 
shall then be able to judge better of the result. Along 
with the prepared seeds, 1 sowed also some unprepared, both 
in the virgin soil and in pure sand. They had all sprung 



116 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

well when I left, 1 hope soon to have the pleasure of writing 
you again on the subject. Meantime, 
" I remain, sir, 

" Your most obedient servant, 

"J AS. Campbell. 
"Hknry Colman, Esq. London" 

There were exhibited, on tliis occasion, specimens of oats, 
barley, wheat, and rye-grass, raised from seed chemically pre- 
pared. Mr. Campbell adds in another letter as follows : — 

"It is now a considerable time since I began to imagine that, 
if the ultimate principles, of which the proximate constituents of 
most of the gramineous seeds are composed, could by any means 
be made so to enter the substance ot the seed, and at the same 
time not to injure its vitality, as thoroughly to imbue its texture 
with an excess of these principles, the end (viz., of superseding 
maniues) would be accomplished ; and it is by doing this to a 
certain extent that I am certain I have succeeded. 

" The specimens of oats prepared from sulphate of ammonia 
are magnificent, both as to height and strength, being six feet 
high, and having stems like small canes, and consisted of an 
average of ten stems from each seed, and 160 grains on each 
stem. The oats from muriate of ammonia v.'^ere vigorous and 
equally prolific, but not so tall ; and those from the nitrate of 
soda and potass were nearly equally prolific, but still less tall. 
Big^ or hear, from a preparation of nitrate of ammonia, like that 
in which the barley was steeped, had an average of eleven 
and a half stems from each seed, and seventy-two grains on 
each stem." 

Mr. Campbell states " that the ground in which his experiments 
had been made had received no mamue for eleven years, and in 
it there was little organic matter of any kind." It was in a yard, 
or old garden, next to his house ; but unless he had made an 
analysis of the soil in respect to the amount of organic matter 
contained in it, I should conclude that his judgment here was 
at fault. This circumstance, however, is of little consequence, 
since the experiments were comparative, and made in the same 
soil, and under the same circumstances. The plants had been 
principally removed from the ground Avhen I saw it ; and I had 
only to regret that the experiments, of which, from the apparent 



STEEPING SEKDS. 117 

results, he could hardly, beforehand, have realized the impor- 
tance, had not been made with more scrupulous exactness. 
They are, however, sufficiently interesting and decisive to in- 
duce other experiments, in which the results may be more 
defined. Mr. Campbell's disinterested conduct in communicating 
them to the public does him the highest honor. 

Mr. Campbell has since sent the following communication to 
the Agricultural Society, as to the results of the unfinished 
experiments noticed in his former letter : — 

'^ The salts were neutralized by adding the carbonates until 
effervescence completely ceased ; and this was done that there 
might be no excess of acid." Mr. Campbell adds, with respect 
to his succeeding experiments, which he proposed to examine on 
the 12th of October, that they were completely successful, show- 
ing a decided contrast in favor of the prepared seeds. In the 
soil dug up from 6 or 8 feet under the surface, the prepared seed 
showed plants with seven and eight stems, while the unprepared 
had not more than three. 

The preparation of seeds by steeping is not a new process. 
The preparation of wheat, by soaking in brine or in a preparation 
of arsenic, has been recommended, and, so far as my own expe- 
rience and observation go, may be considered as a sure remedy 
against smut. The steeping of Indian corn in a solution of 
copperas and of saltpetre has likewise been supposed to stimu- 
late and promote its growth, though this is not so well established 
as might be desired. But a scientific attempt, like that of Mr. 
Campbell, to combine, upon chemical principles, the ingredients 
or salts deemed essential to the growth of the plant, and to fur- 
nish them by soaking the seed in them, is a rare, though not 
wholly an unknown attempt. Its partial success, in this case, 
affords strong encouragement to further experiments. The steep 
may be supposed to operate in two ways — either as a stimulant, 
to cause the seed to develop its powers of germination more 
rapidly and fully than it otherwise would do, and thus gather 
more of the nourishment which it needs from the soil or the 
atmosphere ; or as supplying that proportion of saline or inor- 
ganic matter which the plant requires. This is indeed very 
small, " though absolutely essential to the perfect condition of the 
seed, and to the healthy growth of the plant which springs from it." 
Tills is said to be, in wheat and barley, from Ih to 2 per cent, of 



118 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the whole weight ; and m oats it is said to be 3^ per cent., thougli 
much of this is in the husk of the oat. In being apphed at once 
to the seed in a form to enter and saturate the pores of the seed, 
it may be expected to be taken up by the small roots of the 
plant as soon as they are developed ; and its effects, therefore, 
must be immediate. But whatever may be the theory in the 
case, should Mr. Campbell's results be confirmed by further 
experiments, the fact will be obviously of great importance. 

From some pamphlets translated from the German by Pro- 
fessor Johnston, extracts from which have been published in 
the Edinburgh Journal of Agriculture, it seems that great dis- 
coveries have been made in Germany, in the steeping of seeds ; 
and, in the enthusiastic expectations of one of the discoverers, the 
application of manure may be dispensed with, and the rotation 
of crops on the same soil, in order to recruit the soil, will no 
longer be necessary. The confidence with which these experi- 
ments are given, and their results proclaimed, would seem to 
entitle them to attention. 

I shall here take leave to quote from a paper of Professor 
Johnston some of these statements. Franz Heinrich Bickes, of 
Castel, Mayence, has published An Account of the Discovery of a 
Method of cultivating the Soil without Manure. He says, " It 
is twelve years since the discovery was made. The experiments 
have been made at various seasons of the year, and the same 
crop has been repeated on the same soil without regard to 
the usual rotation. The cost is trifling, and the supply of the 
materials to be substituted for manure is inexhaustible. The 
testimonies in its favor are said to be from practical men ; and 
they assert that, from examples in the Imperial Garden in Vienna, 
in general the prepared seeds exhibited a very much stronger 
growth, were of a deeper green, had thicker stems, finer and 
fresher leaves, larger grain, and the grain was thinner skinned, 
and therefore contained more meal. 

" The hemp was of a much larger size, and had many side- 
shoots bearing seed. 

" The Indian corn had more ears. - 

" The buckwheat was upwards of three feet high, and full of 
seed. 

" Wheat, rye, barley, and oats, are thicker, and have more 
numerous stems, larger ears, and more grains in each. 



STEEPING SEEDS. 119 

" The lucern was beyond all comparison stronger, had more 
shoots, and its roots were as thick again. 

" The disks of the sunflower were doubled in diameter ; the 
cabbage had larger heads, the cucumber larger fruit, while the 
unprepared seed yielded nothing." 

Other testimonials are added from persons of respectable stand- 
mg and condition. Other plants, besides those above mentioned, 
are said to have been equally benefited. One fourth only of 
the usual quantity of seed, of wheat and rye, was sown on a 
poor, unproductive clay ; and yet the product was greater than on 
the newest land of good quality, though aided by manure. 

" Ten or twelve potato plants gave, on an average, thirty large 
potatoes each, and had stems seven feet in height. 

'' Fifteen stalks of Indian corn had, on an average, five ears 
each, some having as many as eight or nine ears to a single 
plant. 

" The buckwheat was four and a half to five feet high ; the 
flax had four to five stems from each seed. The white clover 
was as large in the leaves and stems as the red clover usually is ; 
the red clover and lucern three feet high." 

The experiments of Mi-. Campbell induced many farmers to 
try the effects of steeps upon their seeds. One of the most ex- 
perienced and intelligent cultivators in Scotland informed me 
that his success had been partial. He had made numerous ex- 
periments, and in some instances with remarkable, in others with 
no effect. I am not yet in possession of the details, which I 
presently hope to obtain from him, and on which I shall greatly 
rely. As my Report is going through the press, I have been 
favored with a reply to a letter written to Mr. Campbell on this 
subject, which I annex. 

" The accounts which I have received from various quarters 
are conflicting, some exceedingly good, and others equally bad ; 
but this I have learned, that the greatest success has attended 
the experiments on a great variety of soils. 

" 1 believe — and this is also the opinion of many others — that, 
where failures have taken place, they are due either to misman- 
agement or to the drought of the season. The resuhs of my 
own experiments are highly favorable ; and I have a variety of 
specimens for the exhibition at Glasgow." 

He adds, " My nephew writes me as under." 



120 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. 

" I hav3 just seen Sir John Ogilvie's overseer, and he states 
that the steeped oats sold by roup, yesterday, at Id. per pole 
more than those which were not steeped on the next rig." 

" N. B. The prepared seeds were sown much thinner than the 
unprepared, at least one quarter. 

"Cranch &- Co., (Newcastle-upon-Tyne,) 30th July, write, 
' We have received some good accounts of the steeps.' 

"P. Bruce, (Hull,) 30th July, writes, 'I am glad to inform 
you that one or two parties tell me that they will buy the steep 
again, supposing that any falling off is attributable to the 
drought.' He has himself seen some that looks very well. 

"I may add that any that I have hitherto seen looks exceed- 
ingly well, better than the unprepared, although sown thinner." 

I cannot say that I am sanguine as to those extraordinary 
results to which, from the quotations which I have made, some 
persons look forward, when there will be no longer a necessity 
for a rotation of crops, and even the application of manure to 
the soil may be dispensed with. But I cannot help thinking 
that much remains to be achieved, and that much may be hoped 
for. We are not to be surprised that failures occur ; but one well- 
authenticated experiment, conducted in an exact manner, and in 
which the extraordinary results may be directly traced to the 
application, is sufficient to outweigh a hundred failures. The 
exhibition at Dundee, supposing Mr. Campbell's statements to 
be true, — and I know no reason to doubt, but, from his manly 
conduct, the best reason to believe them, — satisfied me that some- 
thing important had been effected. I rely little upon mere 
opinion and conjecture, even of parties above suspicion of dis- 
honesty. The mortification of failure, the desire of success, 
the ambition of notoriety, and especially any degree of personal 
or private interest, — all may serve to color the vision, to bias the 
judgment, and present grounds of hesitation, if not of distrust. 
With a full share of confidence in the virtue of men, I have 
been too often disappointed not to require the most ample evi- 
dence in all cases of moment. I was not a little amused in visit- 
mg, with several gentlemen, the farm of an excellent cultivator 
the last summer, that, when he showed us in his field of swedes, 
with an air of the most confident triumph, the surprisingly 
beneficial effects of a certain application upon some marked 
rows, every one of the party except himself was satisfied that 



STEEPING SEEDS. 131 

the rows in question had no other distinction than that of ah- 
sohite inferiority to all the rest. It would have been as useless 
as it would have been uncivil to avow our convictions to him, 
for men are seldom convinced against their will, and assaults 
upon an unduly-excited organ of self-esteem, if they do not 
arouse combativeness, inflict only needless pain. In agricul- 
ture, being eminently a practical art, and as yet, I believe, claim- 
ing not a single theoretical principle as established, excepting 
as first deduced from long-continued practice, experiments are 
of the highest moment. The careless and slovenly manner in 
which they are commonly conducted, the haste with which men 
jump to their conclusions, the variety of circumstances which 
belong to every case of importance, and the imperfect manner 
in which these circmiistances are observed and detailed, are the 
just opprobrium of the agricultural profession. A most intelli- 
gent and agreeable friend, in speaking of the best modes of 
fattening poultry, and in expressing her distrust of some which 
were recommended, said that her venerable grandmother always 
fed and fattened her poultry in a very diflerent way. But upon 
being asked whether her grandmother's fowls were the best 
layers, brought up the most chickens, and produced the best 
poultry for the table of any to be found, she was compelled to 
answer that on this point she had no information. A learned 
naturalist, who, in many respects, was justly celebrated for his 
acquirements, was once asked why black-wooled sheep con- 
sumed more food than white, and proceeded gravely to give half 
a dozen philosophical reasons for it, without having once inquired 
whether the fact were so. 

It is strongly hoped, that, under an enlightened system of agri- 
cultural education, for which the auspices now are most encour- 
aging, and by the establishment of experimental farms, many 
important suggestions, in relation to agricultural practice, as yet 
only conjectural, may be determined, and much actual progress 
made in agricultural science, by the only infallible teacher — 
exact and enlightened experiment. 
11 



122 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



XVI. — SPADE HUSBANDRY. 

The spade husbandly, to which I have aheady referred, has 
been undertaken by several gentlemen, in England, on a some- 
what extended scale, for the purpose of giving employment to a 
numerous population in the vicinity of some large towns, suffer- 
ing for want of the means, or the opportunity, of earning a 
subsistence. In one case, the extent cultivated by the spade has 
been fifty acres ; in two other cases, over two hundred acres 
each ; and the crops produced have been the same as in other 
field cultivation with the plough ; such as turnips, cabbages, beets, 
potatoes, barley, clover, and artificial grasses, oats, beans, peas, 
tares, and wheat. The crops have been cultivated at not an 
unreasonable expense, and the yield has been fully remunerating. 
Oats have given at the rate of forty and fifty bushels per acre, 
and, indeed, very much more ; and wheat thirty, thirty-two, and 
forty bushels. The instrument found by experience best for 
use has been a three-pronged fork, fourteen inches in depth, 
and seven and a half inches in width. By this instrument the 
ground has been stirred to the full depth of the prongs of the 
fork, but only about nine or ten inches of the soil have been 
taken out and inverted.* 

The principle upon which this practice is recommended is the 
same with that of subsoil ploughing. The object desired is to 
loosen the substratum or under soil, so that, in the first place, all 
superfluous water may be drained ofl"; in the second place, that 
the soil may be brought into a finer tilth, and rendered more 
permeable to the roots of the plants, in order that they may find 
the easier access to the nourishment which they draw from the 
soil ; and in the next place, that it may become enlivened, if the 



* Mr. Cruttenden has contrived a fork witli a sharp blade of about vO/ 
an inch in width, which seemed an improvement on tlie common form, 
and which he deemed very useful. The annexed engraving exhibits 
the shape of the implement. The blade, like a spade, cuts off the roots 
with which it comes in contact, and the eartli, when lifled, becomes 
broken by falling through the open spaces between the prongs, com- 
bining the advantages both of a spade and a fork. 



m 



SPADE HUSBANDRY. 123 

expression be allowable, and enriched by the admission of the 
air, by which all portions of it are thns visited, and gain from 
the atmosphere the elements of vegetation which it furnishes. 
Of the value of this circumstance no intelligent agriculturist can 
entertain a doubt. There is another advantage attending the 
spading of land. The tendency of drawing a plough through 
the land is to render the ground more liard at the bottom of the 
furrow, where the shoe or bottom of the plough presses upon it, 
and to make it consequently more impervious to the roots of the 
plant than it would otherwise be ; tliis is of course avoided in 
the spading of land. The sabsoiling of land is deemed of com- 
paratively little use, unless connected with a system of thorough 
drainage ; and this drainage would seem to be of equal impor- 
tance upon land cultivated with a spade. 

In Flanders, it is said that the cultivation by the spade pre- 
vails to a great extent, and is eminently successful. In the 
United States, where land is abundant and labor comparatively 
scarce, it would be idle to recommend to any great extent 
cultivation by the spade. Yet it would be curious to see what 
might be done in this way on a small scale. One of the most 
productive farms for its extent in New England, within my 
knowledge, — if farm it maybe called, — consists of seven acres, 
from which the farmer or cultivator sells annually to the amount 
of twenty-five hundred dollars, or five hundred pounds sterling. 
The industrious and frugal owner sustains his family in comfort 
and independence from this source only, and is actually growing 
rich. He resides within a few miles of a good market, and by 
his skill and industry he sometimes obtains five different crops in 
a season on the same land. The great question of the size of 
farms will come into discussion as I proceed ; but I cannot now 
enter upon it. Such examples of what may be called cottage 
economy, are not without instruction to those who hold and 
manage large possessions. In France, the farms are greatly sub- 
divided, and the holdings are very small. It is estimated by a 
statistical writer, whose authority is respected, that, among 
1,243,200 of small proprietors in France, their possessions do 
not average over five acres apiece. Political economists strongly 
object to such small divisions of land, as unfavorable to the 
production of wealth, and not likely to lead to those improved 



124 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTLTRE. 



modes of agriculture, which would be pursued under a system 
of large proprietorship. 

There is undoubtedly a good deal of weight in the latter 
reason ; for implements and fixtures connected with an improved 
system of husbandry are themselves expensive, and few great 
and substantial improvements can be made without a consider- 
able outlay of capital. Such improvements likewise demand 
systematic arrangements, and often extensive combinations, in 
order to their being effected. I have known numerous instances 
where lands required draining, and indeed were comparatively 
worthless without it; but this draining could not be effected, 
from the obstinacy of a neighbor, through whose land only could 
the water be made to descend. In other cases, where fields 
were held in common, the same evil has been suffered from a 
refusal on the part of the owners of the several pieces to enclose 
the land, and to unite in accomplishing the common object. It 
cannot be doubted, likewise, that the minds of men are 
greatly affected by the nature of their employments ; and 
although there are many cases in which active and strong minds 
Avill rise above every barrier, and, in spite of the circumstances 
by which they are surrounded, will develop their native great- 
ness, yet the constant confinement of the mind to a narrow and 
very limited sphere of action, will not be without its effect 
upon all its operations. The successful management of a large 
farm, like the management of any other large concern, requires a 
great deal of inquiry, calculation, reflection, and knowledge ; 
and all this, from the necessity of the case, begets more inquiry, 
calculation, reflection, and knowledge. It is to minds only of 
this superior cast that we can look with confidence for enterprise 
and distinguished improvements. 

The effect of such small subdivisions of land as those of which 
I am writing, and those which are said to take place in France, 
upon the production of national wealth, is another question, and 
must be put in an exact form before it can be answered. If we 
could suppose all these small farms to be cultivated in the most 
improved and perfect manner, the gross produce would be greater 
than under any other system. This, however, is not to be ex- 
pected, and, for reasons already assigned, would hardly take 
place. In a pecimiary result, therefore, the subdivision of land 
into small farms is likely to fall much short of the product of the 



Sl'ADE HUSBANDRY. 125 

land cultivated in large occupations. But in reference to a general 
competence, and a more equal and just distribution of the prod- 
ucts of the land, and in its moral effects upon the character of 
the laboring population, the system of small farms should doubtless 
be preferred.* If pecuniary gain alone must be the paramount 
object of consideration, and the prosperity of a country is to be 
measured -only by dollars and cents, or pounds, shillings, and 
pence, the cultivation of the land in large parcels would doubt- 
less best effect the purpose ; but if the true prosperity of a 
country is rather to be determined by the general comfort, im- 
provement, and personal independence, of its population, we can 
hardly doubt that arrangements which most nearly connect an 
individual's interest with his own exertions and character, and, if 
the expression be allowed, make him the creator of his own 
fortune, are those which arc most likely to effect these ends. 
The difference in the condition of an individual laboring always 
at the will of another, and having no other share in, or control 
over, the products of his labor, than that which he obtains from 
the willing consent, or wrings from the reluctant necessities, of 
his employer, and that of an independent freeholder in the soil, 
who has a personal stake in the products of his labor, who ap- 
plies this labor as he chooses, and has the absolute control of its 
results, can be best understood by those only who have seen 
mankind in these two different situations. 

There are two cases in which the spade husbandry might 
have an important application in the United States. The Eng- 
lish know nothing of, and can scarcely, as far as my own obser- 
vation goes, be made fully to understand, a condition of things, 

* " No one," says the Baron de Stac], " can compare the present state of France 
with that which prevailed in 1781), without being struck with the great increase 
of the national riches. Throughout all France, the greater number of laborers 
and farmers are at the same time proprietors. Nothing is more common than to 
see a day-laborer proprietor of a cottage, which serves as an asylum to his family ; 
:'.. garden, which feeds his children ; a little fielJ, which he cultivates at his leisure 
huzrs, and which enables him to sustain, with more chance of success, the terrible 
r-trnggle between laborious poverty and engrossing opulence."! 

•'In 1838, the number of separate properties taxed for the imput fonder, in 
France, amounted to the enormous number of 10,896,000. The population of 
landed proprietors, witli their families, is estimated at 20,000,000, or nearly two 
thirds of the total population. The average size of each property is about fom*- 
teen acres." \ 

t Quoted in Laing's Address. \ Porter's Progress of the Nation. 

11* 



J 26 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ill which every man of common intelligence, industry, frugality; 
and sobriety, the great and certain elements of success in almost 
every department of life, may become a freeholder, that is, the 
possessor in fee-simple of more or less land, according to his 
desires or wants. Here, in England, land is so dear as to be 
beyond almost the aspirations of men with small means ; still less 
is it within the reach of those, whose whole wealth consists in 
the labor of their own hands ; or it is held in large masses by 
men whose active capital corresponds with the extent of their 
possessions, and who, in such cases, would almost as soon sell 
their teeth as their land ; or it is locked np by the laws of pri- 
mogeniture and entail, so that even those who hold it have not 
always the power to alienate it. 

It has been said more than once to me, since the publication 
of my First Report, that it is no evil that a man, and any man, 
cannot own a house and land, and that the condition of a free- 
holder is not preferable to that of a tenant. Certainly this must 
depend, to a great degree, upon the conditions under which the 
tenancy is held. But, without pronouncing it an evil, and 
leaving every one to enjoy his own opinion of the case as it is, 
I deem it a great good where such a blessing as a home of 
one's own, and a small farm of one's own, subject to no other 
conditions than such as the common laws of the land extend 
over it for protection, is within the reach and the early attain- 
ment even of the humblest member of the community. Now, 
we have in New England, and in other parts of the country, a 
great many instances, in which men and their families, pursuing 
some handicraft or in-door trade, and professional men, with 
small incomes, are the owners of houses in the country, with a 
few acres of land attached, on which they are occupied in their 
hours of recreation, or at seasons when the calls of their trade 
or profession do not press too strongly upon them. While these 
small farms furnish a large proportion of the supplies which they 
and their families require from the garden or the field, they arc 
alike conducive to their physical, and, I add with equal confi- 
dence, to their moral health. To such persons the spade cul- 
tivation, and the minute and exact husbandry to which it leads, 
would be of great importance. Among the Romans, seven acres 
were regarded as an ample allowance for a family ; and it would 
be extremely desirable to know what are, in fact, the productive 



SPADE HUSBANDRY. 127 

powers of an acre. As yet, I believe, they are very far from 
being ascertained ; but, in the course of my agricultural obser- 
vations, many cases have come under my notice, in which the 
products from a very few acres, cultivated with all the care and 
liberality which such cases admit of, have far surpassed those of 
farms many times as large. 

In one instance, which happens to be before me, the following 
was the result : — 

Three men were employed one week in digging an acre 

with a spade, at 9 s. per week, 27 s. 

The same amount of land, in ploughing three times, cost 

7 s. per acre each ploughing, 21 

Against the spade, ... 6 s. 

At harvest, however, the spaded land produced fifteen bushels 
of wheat more than that under the plough. Here, then, was a 
clear profit, at the current price of wheat at the time, of £ 4 19 s. 
per acre. 

Another example is given of a farmer in Essex, on a farm of 
one hundred and twenty acres. 

•' I have annually dug," he says, " from three to five acres, for 
the last five years. The soil I hav^e operated upon is light, with 
a substratum of gravel, sand, and tender loam. The expense 
of the forking is 2Jd. per rod = 33s. 4d. per acre; but I 
always dig under the furrow left by the plough, which adds one 
ploughing to the expense, viz., 8 s. By adopting this course, I 
do not bring up the inert subsoil until the second time of dig- 
ging. The influence of forking on the crops seems to be, that 
all root crops are much increased in quantity ; the cereal crops, 
which follow, are less injured by drought ; and the land becomes 
much more free from annual Aveeds, as Avell as from those winch 
are of a more permanent nature. I had recently a person with 
me who has made a series of very carefully-conducted experi- 
ments, in which digging has been contrasted with ploughing. 
He thinks the produce of the forked land was nearly double 
that of the ploughed." 

This farmer adds, " First, a man can dig a greater quantity 
of land, in a given time, with a fork than he can with a spade. 
My experience shows one sixth ; and it strikes me it must be so, 
because the pointed ends of a three-pronged fork can be more 



128 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

easily pushed into a hard subsoil than the continuous end of a 
spade ; secondly, it does not bring up so much of the subsoil as 
the spade, but mixes the earth more, a great portion slipping 
through between the prongs ; thirdly, the bottom is left more 
uneven and broken by the fork, which I consider a great advan- 
tage. One great objection to the plough is, the smooth, glazed 
surface which it leaves below, and which presents a resistance 
to the delicate fibres of the plant. If it is correct that, in most 
instances, the present surface soil is nothing more than a portion 
of the subsoil improved by cultivation, it must be right to 
increase the quantity of corn-growing earth bj'' subjecting more 
subsoil to the same operation." 

"An instance is given of the spade husbandry of a farmer in 
Worcestershire, who has cultivated four acres of very stiff clay 
land, two acres of it for seventeen years, and two acres for 
twenty-seven years. He grows, annually, wheat and potatoes, 
with about one quarter of an acre of beans, the crop being 
shifted alternately from one division to the other. His mode of 
cultivation is as follows : As soon as the wheat is off, he ploughs 
his stubble-ground, raking up the stubble to litter his pigs ; he 
then digs it over with a fork, and plants on it potatoes in the 
following spring ; this crop being kept clean, the land needs no 
further preparation for wheat. He does most of the labor him- 
self; but he estimates it to amount to about £4 6s. per acre: 
his average produce has been rather more than forty bushels of 
wheat and twelve tons of potatoes per acre. The system he 
follows, as regards the cropping of the land, therefore, is evi- 
dently of the most trying description ; and this is not all, for he 
sells all his produce, even his straw, excepting a few potatoes 
and beans, which he consumes in annually feeding about thirty 
or forty score of bacon for his own consumption. He litters his 
pigs with the potato haulm and stubble ; and the manure from 
this source, and from his privy, with some clay out of his 
ditches, which he gets occasionally and burns, is all that he has 
to fertilize the land with. 

"Leaving out of consideration the small quantity of beans 
raised and bacon fed, valuing the wheat at 7 s. per bushel, and 
the rest of his produce at the price he obtains for it, we shall 
have something like the following accomit of his farming : — 



SPADE UUSBANDRY. 129 

£. s. d. 

24 tons of potatoesj at 50 s. per ton, 60 

80 bushels of wheat, at 7s. per bushel, 28 

^ tons of straw, at 50 s. per ton, 5 

93 

Deduct from this, manual wages, at £4 6 s. 

1^ d. per acre, 17 4 6 

Seed potatoes for two acres, 25 bags of 

180 lbs., at 4s., 5 

4 bushels of seed wheat, at 7s. 6 d., . . 1 10 

23 14 6 
Leaves him, subject to rent and parochial payments, £69 5 6 

"Thisfarmer than gives strong and unanswerable evidence in 
favor of the fork or spade husbandry. He adds that he has pur- 
sued this system of cultivation during the period of the last 
twenty-four years, with the exception of the first three years, 
when his neighbors ploughed his land for him for nothing ; that 
they are willing to do the same now, at any time, but he prefers 
going to the expense of digging it, to having it ploughed for 
nothing. ^^ * 

This is certainly an instructive example, and shows what may 
be done by very limited and small means. We have, in the 
United States, beyond a question, a large number of farmers, 
who, if they would cultivate, to the utmost of its capacity, a 
small extent of land, in the most thorough manner, would find 
themselves comparatively independent ; whereas, now, without 
capital, spending their deficient labor over a large surface, and 
doing nothing thoroughly, tliey lead a life of vexation, toil, and 
disappointment, without any compensating result. 

To these examples I add the subjoined experience of a Scotch 
farmer, who received a premium from the Agricultural Society for 
his skill and success. 

"In 1831, I determined to ascertain the difference of the 
expense and produce, between trenching land with the spade, 
and summer-fallowing with the plough in the usual way. I 

* These two instances are quoted by that able and industrious agricultural 
■(vriter, Cuthbert W. Johnson, F. R. S., in Journal of Agriculture for January, 
1844. 



130 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

therefore trenched thirteen acres of my summer-fallow break, in 
the months of June and July. I found the soil about fourteen 
inches deep ; and I turned it completely over ; thereby putting 
up a clean, fresh soil in the room of the foul and exhausted mould, 
which I was careful to put at the bottom of the trench. This 
operation, I found, cost about £4 10 s. per Scotch acre, paying 
my laborers with Is. 6 d. per day. The rest of the field, con- 
sisting of nine acres, I wrought with the plough in the usual way, 
giving it six furrows, with the suitable harrowing : I manured 
the field in August : the trench got eight cart-loads per acre, the 
] (loughed land sixteen : the field was sown in the middle 
of September : the whole turned out a bulky crop as to straw, 
particularly the trenched portion, which was very much lodged. 
On threshing them out, I found them to stand as under : — 

£. s. d. 

To two years' rent, at £2 10 s. per annum, .... 5 

" expense of trenching, 4 10 

" seed, 3 bushels, at 6 s. 9 d., 103 

" 8 cart-loads of manure, at 4 s., 1 12 

" expenses of cutting, threshing, and marketing, . . 1 10 

Profit, 3 18 9 

By trenched wheat per acre. 52 bushels, at 6 s. 9d. . £17 11 

£. s. d. 

To two years' rent, at £2 10 s. per acre, 5 

" 6 furrows and harrowing, at 10 s., 3 

" seed, 3 bushels, at 6 s. 9 d., 1 3 

" 16 cart-loads' manure, at 4 s., 3 4 

" expenses of cutting, threshing, and marketing, . . 110 

Profit, 093 

By ploughed wheat per acre, 42 bushels, at 6 s. 9d. . £14 3 6 

" I now saw that, though it might be profitable to trench over 
my fallow-break during the summer months, it was by no means 
making the most of the system, as the operation was not only 
more expensive, owing to the land being hard and dry during 
the summer, but that it was a useless waste of time to take a 
whole year to perform an operation that could as well be done in 
a few weeks, provided laborers could be had ; and as, in all agri- 



SPADE }IUSBANDRY. 131 

cultural operations, losing time is losing money, — as the rent 
must be paid whether the land is carrying a crop or not ; so that 
in taking one year to fallow the land, and another to grow the 
crop, two years' rent must be charged against the crop, or at least 
there must be a rent charged against the rotation of crops for the 
year the land was fallowed. As I felt satisfied that, by trenching 
with the spade, the land would derive all the advantage of a 
summer fallowing, and avoid all the disadvantages attending it, 
I determined on trenching thirty-four acres of my fallow-break 
immediately on the crop being removed from the ground, and 
had it sown with wheat by the middle of November, 1832. I 
may here remark that I did not apply any manure, as I thought 
the former crop was injured by being too bulky. As it is now 
threshed out and disposed of, the crop per acre stands as 
follows : — 

£. s. d. 

To rent of land, per acre, 2 10 

" expense of trenching, 400 

" seed, 110 

" cutting, threshing, and marketing, 1 10 

Profit, 670 

By average of the 34 acres, 44 bushels per acre, at ) r- -i ^ or, 
7 s. per bushel, 5 

" The advantages of trenching over summer-fallow are, in my 
opinion, very decided ; as it is not only cheaper, but, as far as I 
can yet judge, much more effectual. I am so satisfied of this, not 
only from the experiments above noticed, but from the apparent 
condition of the land after it has carried the crop, that I have, 
this autumn, cultivated about a hundred acres with the spade, 
and the crops at present are very promising." 

There are various cases in which the spade husbandry might 
be most usefully introduced. In New England, especially in 
Massachusetts, for the support of the poor, several towns have 
purchased farms, to be connected with their alms-houses and 
pauper establishments, where there is an opportunity of using to 
advantage the labor of those persons among the paupers, who are 
able to do any work, and who are thus made to contribute, in a 
healthful and unexceptionable occupation, to their OAvn support. 
This is an excellent arrangement, and the results have in many 



132 EUKOPKAN AGRICULTURE. 

cases been highly successful. Here, in many cases, the land 
might be wholly cultivated with a spade, and the expense of a 
team be saved, which now oftentimes consumes a large portion 
of the products of a farm, especially where the farm is small, a 
full or complete team being as much required for the cultivation 
of a small as of a large farm. 

In reference to this subject, though it may not be deemed 
exactly in place, I may be allowed to remark that, as far as my 
observation extends, nothing of this sort is done in England ; no 
farm being ever connected with a pauper establishment, and only 
the smallest avails being had from the labor of the inmates 
Indeed, it is obviously judged best — a conclusion which 1 
regard with great distrust — to prevent rather than employ llie 
labor of the paupers. At one of the Unions — for the poor-houses 
in England go by that name, being maintained and managed by 
several towns or parishes uniting together for this object — I saw 
a well-dressed and respectable-looking man employed in sweep- 
ing the walks, and trimming the grass-plats, in the front yard ; 
and, upon my inquiring whether this man were a pauper, I was 
answered in the negative, and informed that he was hired as a 
laborer in the establishment, because it was deemed bad policy 
to employ any of tlie paupers in any such work, lest the place 
should be rendered too comfortable and attractive. I said to 
myself, — and I hope not to give oflence in publishing my 
thoughts, — " The English certainly have their own ways of doing 
things." I am not, by any means, prepared to say, they are not 
the best that could be adopted. Indeed, we perhaps ought to 
think them the best, if we consider how much experience they 
have had, and how many means tiiey have possessed for making 
the most full experiments. But they are certainly, in this respect, 
very different from what prevail on the other side of the water. 
It is an extraordinary condition of things, when, in the midst of 
want and suffering, human labor must be thrown away, oj 
rather the exertion of it forbidden. 



CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 133 



XVII. — CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 

I have no disposition to obtrude my opinion, in any form, so as 
to give offence. Indeed, it has ahvays seemed to me unreason- 
able in any case, or on any subject, that the honest opinions of 
any man should be the occasion of offence, as though we had 
the same control of our opinions as we have of our limbs ; as 
though we should have any other object, in any matter, but the 
attainment of truth ; and as if there were any way of attain- 
ing truth but by the utmost freedom of discussion ; and, above 
all, as though men should, under any circumstances, feel at liberty 
to exercise the same tyranny over the mind which physical force 
and political stratagem give them over the person. 

One cannot help seeing that wealth and prosperity are not 
always coincident ; that wealth is not therefore the infallible in- 
dex of prosperity. In many cases, — and perhaps it may only be 
rendered more striking from contrast, — the extraordinary accu- 
mulations of wealth on one side are followed by a corresponding 
depression on the other ; while the rich are made richer, in the 
same proportion the poor are made poorer. As wealth increases, 
avarice is more powerfully stimulated, and labor more severely 
taxed. In the richest communities, the price of labor is always 
the most depressed ; and with the increase of luxury the desire of 
indulgence is quickened with all classes : what might properly 
be termed luxuries and superfluities become absolute necessaries 
of life, and the expenses of living are proportionally increased to 
all. We may deplore such results, and deem it easy to suggest a 
remedy; but what remedy is of general or of practical applica- 
tion ? The more artificial the state of society becomes, the 
more difficult it becomes to provide the means of living ; and 
yet who would return to the state of nature, or abate one tittle 
in the actual refinements of life ? Communities are growing up 
among us upon the principles of perfect equality of rank, the 
equal combination of labor, and an entire community of goods ; 
and there are examples, where such communities, bound together 
by a strong religious tie, and subject to a most despotic govern- 
ment within themselves, have been maintained, and are still 
flourishing. But without this religious tie, or some strong 
12 



134 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

personal and pecuniary interest, and without an absolute head, 
does any sober man dream that such communities can be sus- 
tained, excepting within the narrowest limits ? or that such prin- 
ciples can be applied, to any great extent, to society at large, 
without an entire change in the whole structure of society, 
and, I may almost add, an entire renovation of human nature 
itself? Far be it from me, however, to suggest that the evils of 
society are without a remedy, or at least beyond alleviation. 
Our own country, under a free constitution of government, and 
with an almost unlimited extent of the most fertile territory, 
accessible upon the easiest terms, presents, perhaps, the most 
favorable condition, which has been known, for a security of the 
rights of labor, and the just fruition of its products ; but it would 
be a great injustice to infer that there are not to be found in 
England many generous and just persons, devoted to the 
maintenance of the rights, and the welfare and improvement, of 
the humble and laborious classes. There cannot be a doubt, 
that, in a noiseless and unobtrusive way, much is, and infinitely 
more can be, done for these objects ; and the aim of every good 
man, as far as he has any power, should be to diffuse, to the 
greatest extent possible, the means of subsistence and comfort to 
all, and to remove every impediment to the most equal distribu- 
tion of the products of labor among those whose labor in their 
production gives them certainly a fair claim upon these products. 
Now, whether it be by large farms or by small allotments, by 
plough or by spade husbandry, that mode of husbandry by 
which the largest amount of product, and at the least expense, 
can be drawn from the soil, and with the least injury to its pro- 
ductive powers, is to be preferred. This great point is not yet 
ascertained ; and its determination must necessarily be different 
in different places and conditions. But it is with England a 
question of tremendous importance, wdiat is to become of the 
vast accumulations of people, which arc continually increasing 
here at the rate of from seven hundred to a thousand per day. 
It is impossible to become accurately, though it may be slightly, 
acquainted with the condition of things in England, the actual 
suffering for a Avant of the means of subsistence, which prevails 
among large portions of the population, especially in some of the 
agricultural districts, and not to feel that there are powerful 
elements of disease at work in the social body, whose disastrous 



CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 135 

effects must presently be felt in all their violence. Men with 
families dependent upon their labor, earning not more than 7 s., 
and in some instances even less, per week, and oftentimes with 
only occasional employment at that rate, present objects of deep 
interest to a philanthropic mind. Men living themselves upon 
a single meal per day, and that potatoes only, for the sake of 
keeping a wife and children from absolute starvation, — and there 
is ample evidence that such cases exist, — present a sad spectacle. 
What are the remedies for such a condition of things, if remedies 
there are to be found, it is not within my province, in this case, to 
discuss. It is a hard lot, where the most severe and unremitted 
labor will not avail to procure a subsistence for one's self and 
family, and where, with immense tracts of uncultivated land, 
the opportunity even of exerting this labor, however cheerfully 
it might be rendered, is, for any cause whatever, refused or 
prevented.* 

The subject, it appears to me, — and perhaps wholly from my 
being unaccustomed to a condition of things in any degree re- 
sembling it, — is daily assuming a fearful aspect ; I do not mean 
of danger to the government, — for the government of the country 
seems never to have been stronger, — but fearful in its bearings 
upon the public peace, the public morals, the security of property, 
and the state of crime. I make no apology for touching upon it, 
because the experience of an old cannot be without its advan- 
tages to a new country, and the condition of labor is a subject 
which materially concerns every just government. Any hopes 
of a government being founded or administered upon strictly 
moral principles are contradicted by all past experience.! The 

* One can scarcely read, withoat a shudder, the following declaration of a 
celebrated economical writer : — 

" A man born into the world already possessed, if he has no assistance from his 
parents, upon whom he has a just demand, or from society for his labor, has no 
claim for the smallest portion of food, and no busmess where he was. At Nature's 
mighty board there was no cover for him ; she tells him to be gone." 

This passage, which appeared in the first edition of his great work, was after- 
wards suppressed, being, it is said, too strong for the temperature even of the 
rankest of the economical school. 

•f " To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government It 
would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think that they can do it. The 
people maintain them, and not they tlie people. It is in the power of government 
to prevent much evil ; it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps in any 
thing else. It is not only so of the state and the statesman, but of all the classes 



136 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

objects of almost all governments seem to be the security of life 
and property, the prevention of crimes which endanger life and 
property, and the aggrandizement of those in power. I do not 
know that more can be expected of them in the way of promoting 
good morals, excepting in the suppression of the direct instruments 
of vice, the support of religious institutions, and the provision for 
the education of the people. A citizen of the United States, from 
habit, if not from principle, at once resists and abjures any inter- 
ference whatever with his religion, whether considered as matter 
of Avorship, or faith, or feeling, because, under the government of 
his own country, with which he has every reason to be satisfied, 
all such interference is absolutely prohibited. All attempts at 
enforcing moral duties by legal enactments would be futile and 
hazardous, since, as it is with human rights, many of them are 
imperfect, so it is with human duties, many of them are so unde- 
fined that it would be difficult to prescribe them with any prac- 
ticable exactness ; and laws of this nature are necessarily of a 
negative character. They may forbid that which shall not be 
done ; but it is much more difficult to enjoin that which shall be 
done. They may determine by law that provision shall be made 
that no man actually perish of hunger in the streets ; but what 
degree of provision short of absolute starvation, how much relief, 
and how much comfort, he shall have, is a matter far more diffi- 
cult to be thus arranged. The provision for the education of 
the people is more clearly within the power and the duty of an 
enlightened government, on the ground, not simply of moral ob- 
ligation, but of improving the national industry, increasing, 
consequently, the national wealth, and of elevating generally 
the character of the people, and so advancing the general 
improvement, and promoting public happiness and order. 



and descriptions of tlie rich. They are the pensioners of tlie poor, and are main- 
tained by their superfluity. They are under an absohite, hereditary, and inde- 
feasible dependence on those who labor, and arc miscalled the poor. Nothmg 
can be so base and wicked as the political canting language, ' the laboring poorJ 
Let compassion be shown in action ; the more the better, according to every man's 
ability, but let there be no lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to their 
miserable circumstances ; it is only an insult to their miserable understandings. 
It arises from a total want of charity, or a total want of thought. Want of one 
kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, labor, sobriety, 
frugality, religion, should be recommended to them ; all the rest is downright 
fraud. It is horrible to call them ' the once happi/ laborers.' " — Edmund Bdrke. 



CONDITION OF TIIF. LABORERS. 137 

But It is vain to look to any government for any thing like a 
paternal superintendence of its people. On a large scale it is not 
practicable. Those who govern can scarcely be expected, to 
have virtue, and disinterestedness, and Avisdom, sufficient for such 
a task ; and those who are governed would not willingly submit 
to their injunctions or regulations. Any compulsory influence 
would be unavailing. But, then, it is the duty of every just 
government to afford to every one of its subjects, as far as 
depends on itself, the means of subsistence ; and institutions or 
regulations, by which the right and opportunity for a man to 
exert his talents in a way not morally injurious to another, are 
taken away, or abridged, or in any degree interfered with, seem 
wholly wrong and unjust. It would be invidious in me, because 
perhaps out of place, to point out in any way how the institu- 
tions of this country so interfere, if interfere they do ; but, as I 
have said before, the condition of a large portion of the popula- 
tion, — I speak of those in the rural districts, — being prevented 
the opportunity of applying the labor by which they might secure 
not only a subsistence, but the comforts of life, forebodes nothing 
but evil, and may, with strong reason, engage the anxious 
inquiries of those who have any power in the case, either of alle- 
viation or remedy. 

The population is increasing throughout the kingdom with 
amazing rapidity ; and, strange as it may seem, the fact is beyond 
a doubt, that the increase is always greater among the wretched 
poor, whom extreme misery has made entirely reckless of con- 
sequences, than among that class whose circumstances are com- 
paratively comfortable, and who have learnt that their comfort 
can be secured only by a wholesome and wise providence. The 
complaint is universal and continual, that the population is too 
numerous ; but this does not prevent their increase. Few will 
be bold enough to hazard the question, Who is here who has not 
a right to be here ? nor, like a party of shipwrecked sailors in a 
boat, to propose the decision by lot, as to which of the party shall 
be thrown overboard. But the great question must be met — not, 
How are the surplus population to be got rid of? but. How shall 
they be sustained ? The insular character of Great Britain 
necessarily and absolutely limits its capacity of providing for its 
population from its own soil, although that capacity is yet far from 
being reached. Idleness begets idleness ; beggary produces and 
12* 



138 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

perpetuates beggary ; crime engenders crime. Sickness and neg- 
lect — a sad relief, alas ! to the benevolent mind — may do some- 
thing towards checking this rapid accinnulation ; for it is stated 
in the commissioners' returns, and has been asserted recently in 
the House of Peers, by a distinguished nobleman, that, in England 
and Scotland, fifty thousand individuals perish annually by 
disease, arising from the wretchedness of their habitations, owing 
to imperfect ventilation, and the want of sufficient drainage.* 
This, however, is a small number to be set against the annual 
increase. Emigration may somewhat alleviate the evil ; trans- 
portation contributes its small share. It is a curious fact, 
however, that disease seems scarcely to produce any sensible im- 
pression on the population, and that the losses occasioned by 
severe and wide-spread epidemics are rapidly filled up and 
obliterated. The effect of the extraordinary improvements al- 
ready made, and daily being made, in machinery, in the manu- 
facturing districts, is to diminish the amount of human labor 
employed, and throw more destitute hands into the labor market. 
What, then, under these circumstances, is to be done, is a question, 
to the great moment of which I have already alluded. It is not, 
in such a case, for men to wrap themselves up in their own 
selfishness and indifference, and say, " Let things take care of 
themselves." 

I was conversing with a friend on this subject, a gentleman 
of great intelligence, and not wanting in benevolence ; and his 
remark was, that an increase of production would do little for 

* This same nobleman, in discussing' tliis important subject, stated that, in ten 
years, a larger number perished, in England, from these causes, than the whule 
number of slaves emancipated in their colonies ; and for which Great Britain priid, 
by a noble exertion, twenty million pounds sterling, or nearly one hundred million 
of dollars. 

This is a curious fact, and every day's history of public beneficence presents 
analogous facts — cases in which thousands and millions are lavished upon objects, 
doubtless deserving of sympathy and kindness, thousands of miles distant from us, 
where the results are sometimes doubtful, and can never be known, but through 
tlie testimony of interested parties, while objects of mercy and kindness, whose 
claims are not less strong and urgent, and whose condition can be perfectly 
known, and where the results of our efforts may be watched and ascertained, 
perish in all their want, ignorance, wretchedness, and profligacy, at the very 
thresholds of our doors. Certainly, true charity, which extends its wide embrace 
to afflicted Iiumanity every where, will not C7ul at liome ; and it might often be as 
well for it to begin there. 



CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 139 

the lower classes, for they would get no more ; with the price of 
bread, their wages, if lower be possible, were likely to be re- 
duced ; the advantages of such increased products would, of 
course, go into the hands of the land-holders and farmers, or the 
large manufacturers and mill-owners ; and that, for his part, he 
saw no ultimate remedy but starvation ; that is, such an actual 
reduction of the means of living, that multitudes should gradu- 
ally perish from want, and so thin off the surplus population. 
He said this, too, with all the coolness and indifference with 
which he would speak of brushing off the flies from the dinner- 
table. '• Good God ! " I said within myself, " has it come to 
this, that familiarity with want and misery can render the heart 
of man capable of contemplating such a result with calmness, 
and that human life on earth should come to be deemed utterly 
worthless ? If there be any humanity, or any religion, left in the 
world, they must be roused to prevent such a catastrophe." 

Whatever anxiety, however, the prospect may excite in a 
benevolent mind, there is no room for despair. It is not consist- 
ent with the nature of my present undertaking, to discuss this 
subject, in its various bearings and aspects, in this place. If life 
and health are spared me, I shall do it in another form. The 
people do not so much demand charity, as work. They do not 
so much require to be supported, as to be allowed to support 
themselves. The remarkable experiment, already referred to, 
of Mrs. Gilbert, a sagacious and benevolent woman, at East- 
bourne, in Sussex county, who has four hundred tenants, on 
small allotments, and of whom not more than three have failed 
to pay their rent punctually, and who, on these small allotments, 
do, in many cases, all that is necessary, and in all, much for the 
support of their families, should command attention. There 
remains, as I have before stated, an immense amount of land, 
which might be cultivated and rendered productive. These 
considerations present the strongest inducements to an improved 
agriculture. More land should be brought into cultivation ; that 
which is cultivated should be better cultivated. The laborers 
should have every encouragement and opportunity to help them- 
selves. The interest of the farmers cannot be separated from 
that of the laborers ; the interests of one class from that of 
another. Embarked in the same vessel, they must succeed or 
suiTer, they must sink or swim, together. 



140 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

I have been, again and again, told that a material change has 
taken place in the condition of the farm laborers, within the last 
fifty years, or even a much less time. The practice of forming 
large farms, by uniting small ones, has tended to remove the 
laborer farther from the intercourse and superintendence of his 
employer. Being engaged in large numbers, individual interest 
and character have been lost sight of ; and, cottages on the estates 
having been suffered to fall into decay, and not being renewed, 
the laborers have been driven into villages, with a great restric- 
tion of their comforts, and exposed to the temptations incident to 
such localities. The large establishments have lost that patri- 
archal character which used to belong to them ; men are em- 
ployed much more by the day, and the week, than by the year, 
as formerly ; and are used, and thrown aside, as occasion may 
require, like mere implements upon the farm. Those strong 
personal ties, so favorable in their influence upon the lower classes, 
and not without most valuable moral efl"ects upon the higher, 
have almost ceased to exist. It was a delightful circumstance, 
when, formerly, without any infringement of personal liberty, a 
laborer was considered as a fixture upon the place, and as having 
a sort of hereditary connection "with the family and the estate 
of his employer, v/hich only the most imperious reasons could 
dissolve ; so men and women lived in the same service twenty, 
thirty, fifty years, and often for the whole course of their natural 
lives ; their children and children's children were often born 
upon the homestead, and the interests of the master and the 
servants became identical. As they were paid, likewise, in kind, 
instead of money, they themselves, being, in a small way, sellers 
of produce, became personally interested in the state of the 
markets ; and ties of familiarity, long vicinity, and connection, 
mutual dependence, and a mutual stake in the results of their 
joint labor, served to connect them the more closely together. 
No one, under these circumstances, can doubt the advantages of 
such a relation on both sides. There are many cases, which have 
come under my observation, where a similar connection exists, 
though in a form very much qualified by modern manners, and 
where individuals and families have been in the same service for 
many long years, and the aged among them are provided for, by 
those in whose service their lives have been passed, in the kindest 
manner, after all power of useful or active labor has ceased 



CONDITION OF THE LABORERS. 141 

and they are staggering under the heavy burdens of age and 
decay. I have ah-eady, in my First Report, referred to instances 
of this nature. But the system most prsvalent is perfectly heart- 
less : labor is considered merely as labor ; human muscles and 
sinews are regarded like the parts of any other implement ; and 
v/hen their power ceases, or their elasticity is destroyed, they are 
thrown aside, like worn-out machinery, into those melancholy 
receptacles of decay and poverty, which have, very properly, 
ceased to be called alms-houses, and which necessity, and not 
charity, provides. I cannot say that such sentiments are pecu- 
liar to England. They are, it is feared, becoming too common 
in the United States ; not merely in the departments of agricul- 
tural, and manufacturing, and mechanical labor, but likewise 
reaching the domestic and household relations, where least of all 
they should have obtruded themselves. This comes, in some 
measure, from that narrow and mean utilitarian philosophy, 
which stimulates avarice into a diseased action, and measures 
every good in life by a purely pecuniary standard. Whatever 
tends to divide these different classes, either in interest or feeling, 
is, to a degree, and ultimately, I fear, it must prove in an equal 
degree, injurious to both parties. Feelings of indifference, or 
contempt, or cruel disdain, on the one hand, are likely to be met 
with a sense of injury, a feeling of hate and revenge, on the 
other ; and one of the greatest curses with which Heaven could 
have visited mankind, would have been to have made them in 
any sense independent of each other. There are no circum- 
stances connected with the condition of society more to be 
regretted than such as separate different classes too strongly from 
each other, and create hostile or conflicting interests. A perfect 
equality of condition among men is a chimera ; and if, by any 
conceivable or possible arrangement, it could take place, the 
earth, in its rapid revolutions, would not pass the half of a degree, 
but it must be interrupted. But an equality of natural rights is 
a position which, if I may be allowed to speak /or one born 
and educated in a condition of society where it has been always 
acknowledged, would not be readily relinquished. Now, if there 
is any right which should be held sacred, next to that which 
every man has to his own person, it is the right of honest labor 
to an ample share of the products of that labor. The rights 
of the rich man to his possessions, honestly and honorably 



142 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

acquired, are as just as those of the poorest man to the crust 
which feeds or the coarse garment which covers him ; but, in 
every condition of society, the rights of the rich and the poor 
are reciprocal, and their dependence mutual and absolute. If the 
poor are compelled, under the arbitrary institutions of society, — 
and I use the term arbitrary in no offensive sense, — more sensibly 
to feel their dependence, the upper classes in society, with that 
spu'it of justice and kindness which constitutes the highest 
grace of power, and wealth, and rank, should be prompt to show 
their sense of how much they owe even of all this poAver, and 
wealth, and rank, to the labors, and services, and fealty, of the 
poor ; and, without losing sight, as far as is consistent with the 
spirit of Christianity, of what is called their position in society, 
to endeavor to soften the severity of those distinctions, which, 
if they mark the elevation of their own condition, equally 
indicate the depressed condition of others. In that beautiful 
language, to which every serious mind will listen with pro- 
found reverence, " The eye must not say unto the hand, I have 
no need of thee, nor yet the head to the feet, I have no need 
of you ; " seeing that even those parts of the body which are least 
" comely," are as essential to the perfect and healthy organiza- 
tion of the machine, as those on which the Creator has im- 
pressed the highest attributes of grace, expression, and beauty, 
and must be equally nourished from the great central reservoir 
of life and strength, or the whole must suifer from weakness or 
decay. 

I do not mean to imply that there is any greater disregard of 
these principles than is to be expected in a condition of society 
so highly artificial as that which exists here, and where the 
accumulations of individual wealth, and of what, from its heredi- 
tary and inalienable character, may be termed class-property , are 
so enormous. I do not mean, as I have already said, to express 
any apprehension or alarm for the safety of the present institu- 
tions of England ; for, though the flood of population is rising with 
a continually accelerated force, and in almost a geometrical ratio, 
yet Avealth here is so strong, and poverty so powerless, and the 
safety of the Avhole is so essentially concerned in the mainte- 
nance of the integrity of its present form of society, and, above 
all, the experience of a neighboring nation, on the subject of 
revolution, is so admonitory and terrific, that almost every thing 



CONDITION OK TUL" LABORERS. 143 

Will be endured before any violence is hazarded or permitted. 
Still it is obvious to every reflecting mind how important it is to 
the public peace and the security of property, that the rights of 
the laborious classes should be fully acknowledged, and main- 
tained in the spirit of kindness and equity, as well as of strict 
legal justice, and that every philanthropic effort should be 
stimulated and encouraged to protect and comfort them, and, 
more than that, by education, moral and intellectual, — for, with- 
out moral, intellectual too often proves a curse, — to elevate them 
in their social condition. Next to the satisfactions of an honest 
conscience, the highest of all earthly pleasures to a good man, is 
that of conferring happiness upon other,':.. I have seen, in Eng- 
land, with a gratification which it would be dilFici:».t to express, 
among persons of the most brilliant rank and the most com- 
manding influence, many instances of a conduct which deserved 
and secured all this felicity. Every where men are to be found 
feeling their high responsibleness, and, Avithout any offensive 
assumption of superiority, devoting all their energies to the pro- 
tection of the houseless, and to the comfort and improvement 
of those whom divine Providence has cast within the circle of 
their beneficence, and enjoying all that calm security which such 
conduct is sure to bring with it. I confess there has been no 
occasion in my life when I have been so much disposed to envy 
the possession of wealth and power. On the other hand, I dare 
say I shall only be compassionated for my simplicity, when I 
add that the high stone and brick walls, with wliich houses, and 
parks, and properties, are here often intrenched and fortified, so 
high that even the nimblest jail-bird would look at them with 
despair, and the fences every where bristling with iron spikes and 
broken glass, and the sullen gates opening "with discordant jar." 
and the ferocious watch-dogs, to say nothing of other mastiifs, 
often stationed by them, from whose terrific growl even the 
honest npplicant shrinks back with dread ; and then the signs 
which meet your eye constantly, "All vagrants and beggars for- 
bidden here," " All trespassers here will be prosecuted to the 
utmost rigor of the law," and " Steel man-traps set here," often 
bring a cold chill over me, and compel me to feel that property 
held under such cautions loses somewhat of its value. At the 
same time, it makes me estimate the more highly a condition of 
society where the road of acquisition is equally open to all, and 



144 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



where property being more equally distributed, and in almost all 
cases the fruit of personal industry, its rights are more readily 
admitted, and its protection becomes matter of equal and uni- 
versal concern. 

I return now to speak of the present actual condition of agri- 
culture in England. I have dwelt largely, but I hope not too 
largely, upon miscellaneous and incidental considerations. I 
propose now to consider the actual condition and character of 
English agriculture ; the improvements which it has effected ; 
and those which remain to be devised. 



XVIII. — PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE, COMPARED 
WITH OTHER PURSUITS. 

I have already said that the agriculture of England — and here 
I include Scotland — is highly improved ; but I may say, I think, 
with confidence, and certainly without censoriousness, that it has 
not yet reached that degree of excellence to which it is capable 
of being carried. In parts of the country, not nmch has been 
done ; in the best cultivated districts, it would be presumptuous 
to say that the goal of perfection has been reached. Among 
the highest gifts with which Heaven has endued the human 
mind is a generous and insatiable ambition after excellence ; an 
avarice of improvement, if so it may be termed, which character- 
izes a great mind ; which knows in no case entire satisfaction ; 
which no sooner mounts one summit tlian it essays to climb a 
higher ; and which, if in any thing it should reach barriers that 
are absolutely impassable, would, like the celebrated hero of anti- 
quity, "weep that it had no more worlds to conquer." I am 
not willing to admit that this ambition, one of the noblest attri- 
butes of the human soul, can ever be stimulated to too great a 
degree. Cobbett, in his terse, energetic, but rather coarse manner, 
says that "he despises a man who is contented with his condi- 
tion ; " and in the sense in which he obviously designed to be 
understood, I quite agree with him, that no man should be satis- 
fied with good while better is attainable ; and that it would 



PISOGRKSS OF AGRICULTURE. 145 

indeed be a sad condition of things, when the capacity, and still 
more the disposition, for improvement should cease. 

It is, and, as long as I can remember, it has been, common to 
decry the farmers, as a stupid, ignorant, plodding race, satisfied 
always to jog on in the steps of their fathers, and averse to any 
improvements, such as are going forward in other departments of 
industry. I think I may confidently deny the allegation ; and I 
regard the reproach with the disdain which it merits. My own 
observations, in England and the United States, lead me to the 
conclusion, that, after making every just allowance for the neces- 
sary difference of circumstances in the different cases, there is as 
much intelligence in regard to their art, and as strong a spirit of 
improvement, with the agricultural as with any class in the com- 
munity ; and, more than that, the improvements, which have been 
actually accomplished in the agricultural art, are in no respect 
inferior to those which have been effected in manufactures and 
commerce, or in the higher professions, — if so we submit to call 
them, which I confess I do with great reluctance, — medicine 
or law ; I would add theology, if I dared ; but I am afraid I 
should get into hot water. 

In medicine, if under that head we include surgery, one can- 
not go through the streets of London, and observe, at the shop- 
windows, the models of wooden legs, and artificial ears, and glass 
eyes, and mineral teeth, and the promise of a new nose, where 
the victim of misfortune has been deprived of his proboscis, 
without acknowledging that the triumphs of the svu'gical art are 
as brilliant as they are useful and humane. If one likewise 
should place any reliance upon the numberless patent medicines 
and nostrums which decorate the pages of the newspapers, he 
would be led to infer that the reign of disease was broken up, 
and the elixir of immortality at length discovered. But whoever 
looks into the medical reports, and observes the variety of systems 
and modes of practice which prevail, and which different col- 
leges of physicians seem to bring out as regularly, and in almost 
equal numbers, as the good housewife's hens bring out their broods 
in the spring, and especially reads the accounts of the various 
experiments, to which, for the benefit of science, their patients 
are unconsciously subjected, and by which, without the credit of 
inclination or consent, they are made, at their own personal ex- 
pense, suffering, and peril, to contribute to the most philanthropic 
13 



146 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

discoveries, — it cannot be claimed for medicine, that it is alto- 
gether abov^e the charge of empiricism, or that it has yet accom- 
plished all that is to be desired in lessening the number or 
alleviating the virulence of diseases, or in restoring human life, 
with any confidence, to even a tithe of that longevity, which is 
claimed for it in those patriarchal ages when apothecaries' shops, 
and medical schools, and degrees, do not appear to have been 
established. It is scarcely better with the law. One of the most 
distinguished legal gentlemen in England has lately stated, in his 
place in Parliament, that such is the condition of the criminal law, 
that even the most learned in the profession cannot, in many cases, 
determine whether he is, by particular actions, committing an 
offence or not. The records of the courts daily show that the 
most_ momentous decisions often turn upon points the most 
abstruse, and as yet absolutely unsettled ; that even the most 
learned judges on the bench disagree in matters both of law and 
equity, involving property and life ; and it seems but too often 
the test of legal eminence and skill to ascertain, not whether it 
be practicable to get " a camel,'' but whether the lawyer can get 
himself or his client, " through the eye of a needle," as being the 
most brilliant triumph of his art.* In tlieology, it cannot be said 

* In a recent trial, a brute in human shape, or rather a demoniac, — for brutes 
are not capable of actions so malicious, — was indicted for wounding, maiming, 
and injuring, a horse. Ho, it seems, in the furj' of his passion, had drawn out the 
tono^ue of the horse, and, by rubbing it against one of his teeth, had cut off four oi 
five inches of it, Avhich he threw at the horse's head. His counsel opposed the 
indictment, on the ground that there could, as defined by law, be no icounding 
but where some insirumcnl was used ; but the tooth was notvin instrument ; — there 
could be no nutiming but where some h'm& was injured ; but the tongue was not a 
limb ; — and that tliere was no injury, because, though the horse found some diffi- 
culty in eating his oats, he wa.s otherwise as useful for labor as before his tongue 
was cut off. On these grounds the prosecution failed, and the savage escaped. 
Under such an admmistration of justice, it would scarcely have been surprising, if 
the horse, had he not lost liis tongue, had himself spoken out; and it would have 
been only fair if lie had been allowed to bite off the ears of the lawyer, and of a 
magistrate who sanctioned such law. 

At a court of assizes which I attended, and wliere the criminal calendar was 
heavy, a young married woman, of decent and respectable appearance, having a 
husband and children, and against whose character, in other respects, nothing was 
alleged, was sentenced to ten days' solitary imprisonment, for having taken for her 
fire, on the estate of a countess, near which her cottage stood, a stick of wood, 
valued at threepence, from a tree that had been felled and partly cut up. If 
tlie tree had not been cut down, and she had taken a piece as large, the act 



PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE. 147 

that much progress has been made in determinhig many ques- 
tions which have vexed men's minds for centuries. I confess, 
when I was in the Bodleian library, at Oxford, that immense 
repository of the labors of so many burning brains and aching 
liearts, with its five hundred thousand volumes, and considered 
that, beyond all question, more than three hundred thousand of its 
thick octavos and ponderous quartos and folios were commenta- 
ries upon the Scriptures, or discussions of disputed questions in 
theology, and yet, in respect to most of them, that we are still at 
sea, and no land in sight, I could not escape the conviction, that 
here, too, man is still in leading-strings, and has yet scarcely 
taken " the first steps of infancy." 

In respect to manufactures and commerce, if we compare the 
common operatives in either of these departments with those of 
the same class in agriculture, — the laborers in the mills, or the 
sailors on boardship, with the common laborers on the farm, — we 
shall find no great advantage, in intellectual progress, which the 
one has over the other ; but, again, if we compare the highest 
class of farmers with the highest class of merchants and manu- 
facturers, it will certainly be no disparagement to the latter 
classes to say that they are not in advance of the best-informed 
agriculturists ; and that agriculture is nov/ as much a matter of 
the mind, as much a matter of intellectual observation and in- 



v/ould have been a simple trespass, and she would have been mulcted in a fine 
only : as it was, however, it was a. felony or crime, and she was punished accord- 
ingly. I could easily imagine tlie amazement of the poor unfortunate creature 
at so subtile and philosophical a distinction. I must add, though it may seem out 
of place, that a criminal prosecution for an offence of this nature can have no 
other effect tlian to engender a bitter malignity on the part of the poor towards the 
powerful, and that the generally severe administration of penal justice upon the 
humble and defenceless, (not, I must confess, peculiar to England,) when the large 
flies so often break through tlie cobweb of the law, and escape by intrigue or in- 
flucnce> can have little effect in producing reformation ; and its main tendency 
must be to nourish, on the part of tlie lower classes, a deep resentment of tlie 
partiality, and an utter hatred of the power, to which they are subjected. A 
paternal administration of justice is not, of course, to be expected ; but what an 
infinite amount of guilt and Avretchedness would be saved, if the cij-cumstances of 
the guilty could be more mercifully considered ; especially if humanity and pub- 
lic justice could be more exerted in preventing rather than in punishing crime ; 
above all, if society itself, by its omissions or its institutions, were not, in too 
many cases, the tempter, the minister, and the pander to crime, as well as its 
terrible avenger! 



148 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

quiry, as any one of the practical arts of life ; and at the present 
moment, it is occupying as much attention from the highest class 
of minds as any other of the business pursuits of life. 

I hope, viewed in this aspect, I shall not be thought to speak 
with undue warmth on this subject. I have, 1 am aware, already 
alluded to it ; but I am anxious to assert the dignity of a pursuit 
which I regard among the most honorable, as it is among the 
most innocent and useful, in life ; and I would, if possible, soften its 
aspect, and multiply its attractions, to a large class of persons, 
who have been accustomed to look upon it with indifference or 
disdain, but who would be sure to find in it, if ardently and 
intelligently pursued, health for the body, and peace and satisfac- 
tion — nay more, the strongest and most delightful interest — for 
the mind. 



XIX. — ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH 
AGRICULTURE. 

But of what nature are the improvements which agriculture 
has actually made in Great Britain, which determine the present 
high condition of the art ? A stranger cannot, of course, from 
personal experience, compare her present condition with what it 
was ; yet the marks of progress are so obvious that the most 
transient observer recognizes them ; and many are now in the pro- 
cess of accomplishment, which fill him with delightful surprise. 
Many of these improvements are among the noblest triumphs of 
art, and mark, as strongly as in almost any other cases, the power 
of mind over matter, the subjugation of physical elements to an 
intellectual sovereign. 

1. Draining, Irrigation, and Warping. — Much of what has 
been done is entirely out of sight ; whole fields, thousands and 
thousands of- acres of land, have been underdrained by pipes and 
channels, spreading themselves like beautiful net-work under the 
surface, taking ofi" all the surplus moisture, and converting cold, 
unfruitful, and unsightly morasses into productive and beautifid 
fields. It would be curious, if it were possible, to approximate 



ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 149 

ihe amount of this work which has been done ; but there are no 
means even of framing a reasonable conjecture. It undoubtedly 
embraces hundreds of thousands of acres, and much more is in 
progress, since, important and indispensable as moisture is to 
vegetation, nothing can be more prejudicial than a superabun- 
dance of water, and especially stagnant water. Of the different 
modes of draining I shall speak hereafter at large. It is a sub- 
ject of great importance and utility, and requires to be treated in 
the fullest and most exact manner. The next great improve- 
ment, that I have witnessed in England, is in the fen-country of 
Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, where vast territories, embracing 
many thousands of acres, have been, it may almost be said, 
created, that is, redeemed from the sea, fortified by strong and 
extensive embankments, and now rendered as fertile and produc- 
tive as any lands which can be found upon the island. These 
lands, likewise, are kept drained by immense steam engines, 
which move with an untiring power, and accomplish this mighty 
work with ease. In other cases, in Lincolnshire, another 
process is going on, here denominated warping, by which, on the 
banks of the Humber, immense tracts are enclosed, the tide shut 
in, and compelled to leave its rich deposit, thus forming, likewise, 
the richest meadows. Still another process is in progress, by 
which the crooked course of a river is straightened, its channel 
deepened by its own new current, and rendered navigable, and, 
by the erection of artificial banks, the soil within them continu- 
ally raised, and hundreds of acres, where so recently the fish, at 
high water, sported with impunity, are rescued from the sea, and 
covered with thriving flocks of cattle and sheep. In Yorkshire, 
not only are various processes of redeeming and improving land 
going on, but the curious process of removing, by the aid of 
steam machinery, the rich deposit from the bed of a river, whose 
current has been diverted from its natural course ; and this de- 
posit, after being taken out, is laid, at not an inordinate expense, 
on a peat bog hitherto unproductive and worthless. By judi- 
cious management, it is spread on the land to the depth of eight 
inches, and the covering proceeds at the rate of five acres per 
day. In Nottinghamshire, a most splendid improvement has been 
effected in turning the course of a small river, so as at pleasure 
to irrigate several hundred acres of land, which were formerly 
poor and comparatively unproductive, but now yield the most 
13* 



150 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

abundant crops ; and in Staffordshire, the same results have been 
reached, not by a river, but by collecting the springs, and form- 
ing a grand reservoir, from which the water is carried over 
extensive fields, which are thus irrigated at pleasure. 

2. Live Stock and Vegetables. — The next great feature m 
the improved husbandry of England is apparent in its live 
stock. I do not speak of it as seen at the cattle-shows of the 
different agricultural societies in the kingdom ; for here the ani- 
mals are all selected, or at a very great expense, and after a long 
time, fitted for the exhibition ; but I speak rather of them as 
they are seen in Smithfield market, every Monday, and at the 
other smaller markets and fairs in various parts of the country. 
Here are the cattle and sheep of several distinct breeds, and all 
of remarkable excellence of their kind ; I do not say perfect, — for 
that, in almost all cases, is assuming too much, — but leaving very 
little to be desired beyond what has been attained. Their con- 
dition and form, their symmetry, their fatness, are all admirable ; 
and each breed is seen retaining its distinct properties, and, 
what is most remarkable, showing how much can be done by 
human art and skill in improving the animal form and condition, 
and bringing it to a desired model. 

From Smithfield market, if he goes to Covent Garden market, 
in the infinite profusion and variety of fruits, and vegetables, and 
flowers, which are always to be found here, and in the perfection 
to which they are carried, and many of the finest fruits, in defi- 
ance of an uncongenial climate, he will find evidences of the same 
admirable skill and art which are displayed in other departments 
of rural industry. 

3. Agricultural Implements. — The next evidences of the 
improvement of the agricultural art are to be seen in the extra- 
ordinary display of agricultural implements at the great shows. 
The exhibition at the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society 
at Derby, in July, 1843, was so remarkable, that I shall be 
excused for giving a statement of the number, and many of the 
kinds, of the machines and implements there exhibited. 

Of Tilloge Implemejits, then, there were, — of ploughs, 148; 
harrows, 31 ; scarifiers, 2.'5 : clod-crushers, 7; rollers, 12; couch 
rakes, 4. 



ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTUKE. 151 

Of Drilling, Soioing, Manuring^ and Hoeing Machines. — 
Of drills and bessers, and seed-sowing barrows, some designed 
for sowing manure with the seed, there were 61 ; of dibblers, for 
putting in the seed, 4 ; of horse-hoes, adapted to the cultivation 
of drilled crops, 20. 

Of Harvesting Machines. — For hay-making, 4 ; horse- 
rakes, 7. 

Of Barn Machinery. — Horse engines, locomotive or station- 
ary, 7 ; steam engines for threshing or grinding, 6 ; threshing 
machines, 15 ; winnowing and cleaning machines, 20 ; crushing 
and splitting mills, 36 ; corn and meal mills, 20 ; chaff-cutters, 
51; cake-crushers, for oil cake, 14; corn weighers and meas- 
ures, 2. 

Field, Fold, and Yard Machinery. — Of turnip-cutters, 12 ; 
root-graters and cider mill, 3 ; potato-washers, 2 ; steaming 
apparatus, 5 ; feeding apparatus and fodder preservers, various ; 
weighing machines for carts, cattle, &c., 4; fire and garden 
engines, 11; machines for stock yard, various; sundries, ma- 
chines for breaking stones, iron field gates, hurdles, trucks, 
fences, &c. &c. &c. 

Agricultural Carriages, Harness, and Gear. — Wagons and 
carts for market, for harvest, for manures, (solid and liquid,) for 
family use, &c. &c., 38; breaks for carriages of all kinds; sets 
of wheels, axles, &c. ; harnesses and horse-gear ; drain tiles, and 
implements for forming tiles, 9. 

Dairy Implements. — Churns, 8 ; cheese presses, 6 ; ciu-d 
mills, 4 ; miscellaneous and various implements, and tools and 
vessels for domestic and rural purposes. 

It cannot be expected that I should characterize these machines, 
and point out their various properties ; though this is what I pro- 
pose to do hereafter, in respect to such of them as seem to me 
most desirable to be introduced into my own country ; but the 
number and variety of them which have been produced, and the 
neatness and care with which they are made, evince great 
mechanical skill and knowledge, and show that here, as well as 
in other departments of industry, the mind has been at work, and 
has produced the natural fruits of intense and well-directed 
application. 

4. Application of Steam to Agutculture. — There is, indeed, 



152 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

one giant power, of comparatively modern invention, which, it is 
thought, has not been as successfully or extensively applied in 
agriculture as in some other departments of the arts. Every one 
knows, at once, that I refer to the power of steam, which seems, 
wherever introduced, to defy all competition ; and every day's ex- 
perience appears to demonstrate that its extent is yet hardly con- 
ceived, and its application only begun. The experiments, which 
have been made in the application of steam power to the movement 
of ploughs, have not, as far as I can learn, been attended with 
success. It will not be safe to assert that this cannot be done to 
advantage ; but certainly that is not the only application of steam 
to the purposes of agriculture, which is to be looked for. 
Indeed, besides the impossibility of an art, so intimately associ- 
ated as agriculture is with almost all the practical arts of life, 
escaping its share of the general advantages which the com- 
munity is enjoying from this mighty agent, it has already 
received many direct contributions from it. In the Lothians of 
Scotland, those beautifully cultivated grain districts, which, when 
seen in the season of their glory, with their green and their 
golden crops, so rich and delightful as to make the heart of an 
enthusiastic agriculturist beat as though he himself had a steam 
engine under his waistcoat, a steam engine is to be found on 
every principal farm, for threshing out all the grain, and for other 
economical purposes, to which, on a great farm, these engines are 
capable of being applied. The average size of these engines for 
threshing is from a six to an eight horse power, and the cost, 
which was formerly more than £ 120, or $ 600, is now greatly 
reduced. 

The advantage of steam, as a motive power, must be obvious. 
It is always available, at all seasons, and without reference to the 
weather. Its movements are uniform, whereas horse power is, 
to a degree, capricious and unsteady, and horses often suffer a 
great deal, both from too constant and long-continued pulls, and 
likewise from frequent stops and starts. The steam power never 
tires, and its operation may be continued to any length of time 
or quantity. These are all great advantages, especially when a 
farmer, from any sudden advance, wishes to bring his grain at 
once into the market. It is obvious, at the same time, what 
advantages he has in having his horses saved from the severe 
work of threshing, and fresh for other farm work. The saving of 



ACTUAL IMPUOVKMENTS IN KNGLISII AGRICULTURE. 153 

a pair of horses, on a farm, is estimated at £100 per year, (very 
much more, indeed, than it would be with us;) and intelHgent 
farmers assert " that, with steam power, they save one fourth of 
the horse power on large farms." 

The usual quantity of grain threshed by a six horse steam 
power is at the rate of from thirty to forty bushels per hour ; 
though the quantity must vary Avith the condition of the grain 
and the straw. The average worlc of a threshing mill, driven by 
horse power, is 150 bushels per day, and by steam power may 
be reckoned at 250 bushels per day, which is certainly a great 
preponderance in favor of the steam power. The wear and de- 
terioration of the horses, and the expenses of keeping them, are 
most important considerations to a farmer. Indeed, so far as my 
observation goes, there is no single source of expense, none 
which abstracts so much from the profits of farming, and none 
of which the farmers in general are so little aware, as that of 
horse teams. 

In the great experiment, or rather improvement, going on at 
Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire, of emptying the deserted bed of a 
river, and spreading this rich alluvion over a peat bog, the earth 
carts are moved on a temporary railway by a steam engine, and 
carried to their place of deposit, so that, as I have before re- 
marked, five acres can be covered in a day, eight inches deep ; 
and that which it would be perfectly in vain for any inferior 
power to have attempted, is accomplished with perfect ease by 
this willing but mighty agent. The fens in Lincolnshire, where 
the uncertain and capricious power of the wind was formerly 
depended on, and, of course, with little confidence and uncertain 
results, are now relieved, at pleasure, of their surplus water, by 
two steam engines, one of sixty and one of eighty horse power ; 
and the quantity of water removed, the time required, and the 
expense incurred for doing it, are all matters of exact calculation. 
The workmanship of these engines — for I have had the pleasure 
of visiting the spot — is extremely beautiful ; and the advantages 
of the whole arrangement can hardly be overstated. I can easily 
oelieve that the same machinery, on a small scale, may be applied 
m many other similar cases ; and a very intelligent and spirited 
farmer consulted me on the subject of his determination to erect 
a small steam engine, at his own expense, for the purpose of 
draining a part of his own premises. At the show at Derby, 



154 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

there was exhibited a movable steam engine, intended to be 
carried to a farmer's premises as it might be wanted for furnish- 
ing a threshing power, and other purposes. I have not yet learnt 
how it succeeds ; but if success is not attained at a first attempt, 
it is ultimately certain. These machines are made of two, four, 
and six horse power. The cost of the two horse power is £80, 
or $ 400, and a three horse power, £110. This does not include 
the threshing machine. A fixed steam power must have many 
advantages over a movable steam machine. It is never safe to 
calculate upon doing a great many things with any single ma- 
chine. A self-directing machine would be a great discovery : 
but, short of man himself, we can hardly look for that, though it 
seems sometimes to be nearly approached. A great difficulty, in 
many cases, is, that the machinery must be trusted to the hands of 
the stupid, careless, and sometimes malignant. 

Such a power as this, on a large farm, may be applied to a 
great many uses ; and its advantages, in many cases, will be 
incalculable. The turning of a grindstone for sharpening scythes 
and axes, on a large farm, would save, in the United States, a 
great expense of labor and fatigue ; and its application to cut- 
ting roots, and chopping long fodder for stock, to breaking and 
crushing corn and oats, and to grinding grain into flour for the 
family, as well as for cattle, would be highly useful, especially in 
those parts of the country where water power is difficult to be 
procured. This is the case in all flat countries, and particularly 
on the prairies in the Western States. There, in many cases, 
coal abounds ; and there, if ever it may be expected, where miles 
almost may be run without occasion to turn the plough, steam 
may be applied for the purposes of draft. 

Agriculture owes, also, a considerable debt to steam, for the 
advantages it aff"ords in the construction of agricultural imple- 
ments, in respect to cheapness and uniformity. In cutting, saw- 
ing, and planing wood, in grinding and fashioning metals, steam 
power is applied to great advantage. In one, if not more, 
extensive establishment, for the manufacture of agricultural 
implements in New England, steam power is used, so as greatly 
to reduce the expensiveness of ploughs, and other articles, which 
are here made. The same thing is done in England ; and this 
application of this wonderful power is every day extending itself 
to a most extraordinary degree. I may well call it wonderful ; 



ACTUAL, IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AORICULTURE. 155 

for who could have dreamt, on first seeing a tea-kettle boiling 
over the fire, that there were the simple elements of a power 
destined to exert a greater influence in the progress of the arts and 
sciences, and consequently over the whole condition of society, 
than any other known ; which was to rend rocks, and snap iron 
asunder, like bands of straw ; which was to ride securely and 
triumphantly over the mountain weaves of the sea; which was to 
drain floods and lakes, and lay open their fertile bottoms to the 
ploughshare ; which should compel the deep places of the earth 
to disgorge their mineral treasures ; and, disdaining time and 
space, plant distant countries, for all the practical purposes of 
commerce and friendship, of reciprocal supply and mutual im- 
provement, in the immediate neighborhood of each other ? 

This brings me to another great benefit which agriculture 
has derived from steam power, which I should do injustice to 
pass over. I was in Smithfield market a few weeks since, and, 
in conversation with a very intelligent salesman, — whom, let me 
say by the way, I shall never remember but with a grateful sense 
of his kindness, and a high respect for his character,* — he said 
to me, " We have the contributions of seven hundred miles 
brought to market to-day, and without the slightest injury to 
their condition. We have beasts and sheep here from Suther- 
land, and from the southern counties of England ; " and I be- 
lieve he might have added, from Ireland and from Belgium. 
Steam vessels and railroad cars bring them at once to the great 
places of sale. It was always calculated, by the drovers of cattle 
from Connecticut River to Brighton market, near Boston, — an 



* This gentleman, whose business, in the market, is of the most extensive and 
responsible character, presents an example so full of wholesome instruction, that I 
hope I shall be pardoned for enlivening my Report by a reference to it. He 
spends several days in tlie week in the most confused, noisy, and busy place in 
the world, faithful to the interests of his employers, and retires at niglit, a few 
miles from the city, to enjoy his cup brimful of domestic pleasures, at his own 
fireside, in a crowded circle, where mutual love reigns triumphant, where the table 
is covered witli the literary gems of the press, and the walls of his drawing-rooms 
are adorned with the splendid products of his own pencil, displaying t:iste and 
skill. So true it is that men, if tlioy will bo but true to their own intellectual and 
moral natures, need not be utter slaves to the drudgery of business ; and, if they 
will only look for them, may find, at the most moderate expense, within their own 
reach, in the hours of recreation, too often squandered or abused, sources of the 
richest and most elevated pleasures. 



156 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

average distance of about one hundred miles, and which occu- 
pied a week in its performance, — that a beef animal so driven lost 
one hundred pounds in weight ; and then he usually came into 
market foot-sore, sunken, in a state of fever, and looking like the 
victim of cruelty, and the picture of misery and exhaustion. 
Where steam power is employed, a journey of excessive fatigue 
and labor, which formerly occupied seven days, scarcely occupies 
now as many hours, and the animals are transported without 
fatigue or labor, or loss of substance.* 

A farmer at Ware told me that the driving of a fat beast to 
Smithfield, about twenty-six miles, occupied, formerly, two days. 
The animal now goes by railroad in two hours, at a cost, I 
think, of not more than 2 s., and comes into the market fresh 
and sleek, like a new bonnet from the band-box. But there is 
another animal benefited besides the quadruped ; and that is the 
drover himself, who, instead of spending eight or ten days or 
more upon the road, at a great expense of money, and not a little 
increased hazard of morals every day lie is away from his fam- 
ily, finds his business now accomplished, and his money received, 
and himself returned to his home in three days. These are 
considerations of immense importance. f 



* I cannot say that they have not even some pleasure in the transit. This, 
perhaps, might be very well ascertained by an inquiry of the passengers in the 
third class cars, who, through the extraordinary disinterestedness of the railroad 
directors and corporations, are conveyed with the same advantages of the open 
air, the refreshing showers, and the full enjoyment of the rural scenery, and, in 
general, in the same affectionate aggregation, and in precisely the same circum- 
stances of position and comfort, in which tlie cattle are transported. 

f In a recent debate in Parliament, a member, otherwise of considerable clever- 
ness, in referring to the practice of the railroads in rendering the transits of second 
and third class trains less frequent, and much slower tlian first class trains, was 
pleased to say that " it was well enough ; for the time of the poorer classes was 
not of much consequence, and they might as well pass it in the cars as any where 
else." It would be difficult to say what, to any one but himself, is the va?ae of the 
time of a man who could make so heartless an assertion. The poor man's time 
and labor are his only capital. Enable him to do as much again in half the time 
employed, and you quadruple his power of serving the community, and supporting 
himself and family. As for tlie rich man, who made this declaration, I wish him 
nothing worse than to travel in a third class car attached to a .slow night freight 
train, so that, in one of the long tunnels between Liverpool and London, his pleas- 
ant imaginations might be rectified by sober facts, and himself have time for 
reflection and repentance. 



ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 157 

It will not do, then, to say that steam has done nothing for 
agriculture : perhaps no department of industry has been more 
essentially benefited. In its equalizing the value of landed estate 
throughout the country, it has conferred immense benefits. A 
farm, accessible to the great markets by steam conveyance, though 
two hundred miles from London, is now of equal value as if it were 
within twenty miles. The farmer near London may complain 
of this ; but it is proper for the community to remember how 
many more farms are at a distance from, than how many are near 
to, London ; and how little the interest of a few individuals is to 
be brought into consideration, compared with the interest of a 
large community, who are to have the advantages of the ex- 
tended competition. Singular as the result is, however, and 
contradictory as it may seem to all theories on the subject, it 
does not appear, in fact, that any parties are injured by the facili- 
ties given to the most distant to reach the market. In respect to 
all the great interests of society, which are in their nature fluctu- 
ating, or at all dependent on external circumstances, so many and 
such various elements are intermingled and combined, and so 
many new conditions present themselves, that the calcula- 
tions of political economists are constantly at fault ; and the 
results are deeply humbling to the pride of human sagacity. 
Into what a snarl of misery and confusion would every thing in 
this world be thrown, if man's providence were substituted for the 
divine providence ! and so it constantly proves that, just in pro- 
portion as men attempt to interfere with the divine arrange- 
ments, to control the great natural laws of Heaven, and to create 
a perfectly artificial mechanism for the government of society, 
they find their plans defeated ; and the certain result is any thing 
but unmixed or even general improvement. I remember, a few 
years since, it was confidently said, that, when the great Erie 
Canal of New York should be finished, by which the agricul- 
tural treasures of the Great West should find an easy transmis- 
sion to the Atlantic, farms in the neighborhood of New York 
city would become comparatively worthless. Yet, strange to say, 
they have much increased in value, and are now certain to hold their 
own. The vast increase of population throughout the country ; 
the great increase of population in the city of New York, occa- 
sioned, to a considerable degree, by the amount of business 
which this very canal has produced ; the multiplication of trades 
14 



158 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

of every variety, and the influx of wealth to \vhich it has con- 
tributed ; with wealth, the increase of luxury, and the demand for 
fruits and vegetables, — articles in their nature perishable, and 
demanding a rapid and certain conveyance, — with various other 
circumstances, have conspired to keep up the value of farms, 
and, indeed, to increase their value in the neighborhood of New 
York, and in every point from which, by these improved facili- 
ties of conveyance, this great mart has been rendered the more 
accessible. 

The poorest markets — those which are most poorly supplied — 
are in general those where the prices are lowest. Competition 
and abundance create, and, to a certain degree, quicken demand ; 
for the reason that they bring more customers, and create more 
wants. Peaches are now sent by steam conveyances from New 
Jersey to Boston, a distance of nearly three hundred miles ; and 
strawberries from Providence, nearly two hundred miles, to New 
York. What has been the effect ? To lessen price in a very small 
degree in any case, but in many cases not at all ; to increase the 
consumption greatly ; and to induce the farmers, directly in the 
neighborhood of Boston, to go themselves into the cultivation 
of peaches, to take immense pains to guard against the evils of 
an uncongenial climate, and to cultivate, as far as possible, fruits 
of the best quality. Some trades may be overdone ; they may 
be concerned only with articles not of necessity, but of mere 
fancy, and subject to the caprices of Avhim and fashion ; but in 
all those for which the demand is necessarily permanent, and in 
a state of general prosperity in a country, the increased demand, 
growing out of an increased consumption, will be always likely 
to aff'ord a remunerating price. But in any event, whatever 
tends to the improvement of the general condition of the com- 
munity is to be encouraged. It may often be attended with 
partial loss or temporary inconvenience ; yet, in all cases, imless 
conscience or morals are involved, individual benefit or advan- 
tage should yield to the public good. The farmer near a large 
town thinks himself injured by a railroad or canal which brings 
the farm of another man, a hundred miles distant, in competition 
with his own. Every one sees that the great public is to be 
benefited by the increased supply which is thus produced. Now, 
is there any good reason why the distant farmer should not come 
to the market by any facility which he may create or obtain, as 



ACTUAL IMPROVEMKNTS IN KNGLISH AGRICULTURE. 159 

well as his neighbor, provided he does not hinder that neighbor 
from coming in the best way he can obtain, any more than 
there is why the distant farmer shonld be compelled to come on 
foot, and bring his load upon his back, instead of availing him- 
self of his horse or his carriage ? 

5. Increased Production. — But in speaking of the ad- 
vanced and improved state of English agricnlture, there are, 
perhaps, stronger evidences of its jn'ogress than any to v/hich 
I have referred, in the increased jorodnctiveness of the iVuits 
of the earth, and in the increased popnlation which are sus- 
tained by them. 

In the ten years from 1801 to 1810, the average annual import 
of wheat into the kingdom was such as to allow, if divided 
among 17,442,911 souls, — the population of the kingdom at that 
time, — a small fraction over a peck for the annual consumption of 
each person. The average amount imported between 1811 and 
1820, when the mean number of the population had advanced 
to 19,870,589, would have allowed each person not quite one 
gallon and a half for the yearly consumption. The average 
amount of importation for the five years from 1831 to 1835, 
when the mean number of consumers was over 25,000,000, 
if fairly divided, would have given to each person one gallon 
of wheat. Taking the three years 1833, 1834, 1835, the im- 
portation would have allowed only one pint and one fifth, or 
about fifteen ounces, of fine flour to each consumer.* 

This is certainly a very small amount, and demonstrates the 
immense agricultural resources of the country. It shows as 
strongly the improvements in cultivation, by which, under a fast- 
increasing population, the dependence on a foreign supply for 
bread is continually growing less. This can only arise from two 
causes, the bringing more land into cultivation, and a more im- 
proved cultivation. Both causes have probably operated to a 
degree, and of the latter the evidences are every where numer- 
ous and striking. 

I was asking a farmer in Berkshire county, England, — vener- 
able as an octogenarian, — whether he had seen any great im- 

* See an admirable work, full of information — Porter's Progress of the 
Nation, Vol. I. p. 147. 



160 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

provements in agricultm-e ; to which, in spite of the prejudices 
which too often obscure or pervert the vision at so advanced a 
period of life, he replied, with perfect candor, "Immense im- 
provements ; ive knew nothing ; every thing is now better done ; 
the crops are far more various and more abundant ; the product 
of wheat has almost doubled ; the turnip cultivation has been 
created ; the implements are far better ; the live stock is beyond 
all comparison better ; every thing, every thing is better." The 
good old man had lived, like Simeon, in, indeed, a far hum- 
bler sense, to see the marked and strong tokens of the divine 
goodness in the progressive improvement of every thing around 
him ; and he proclaimed it with the glowing enthusiasm of 
youth, and showed the fire still burning under the snow. 
Happy old age, when, instead of a mind soured under the accu- 
mulated burdens and infirmities of advanced years, and covered 
with mossy prejudices, it benevolently acknowledges good wher- 
ever good is found ; progress wherever progress is made ; and, 
instead of growling at the degeneracy of the present times, and 
sighing over the fading reminiscences of what it deems the 
superiority of years which are passed, delights in the actual 
improvements of the present, and sees in them the foreshadow- 
ing of far greater improvements in the distant prospect, when 
the advances now made, great as they may actually be, and still 
greater as they seem in comparison with those of days gone by. 
will be found to be only the first lessons of childhood ! There 
is a good deal of this spirit or temper here, called by the gentle 
name, in England, of conservaiism ; but this man's mind was 
happily free from it. I have all reasonable respect for antiquity ; 
but, if the presumption may be pardoned, I beg leave to say, 
with Lord Bacon, I reckon that to be antiquity which is farthest 
from the beginning. The present times are, therefore, more 
ancient than those which have preceded them, and are to be 
reverenced as imbodying the accumulated wisdom and ex- 
perience of past ages. This spirit of improvement, now so rife 
and active, is the foundation of all intelligent hopes of further 
progress ; and I am happy in saying that in nothing is it more 
obvious than in agriculture, 

6. Royal Agricultural Society. — In this progress the 
Royal Agricultural Society of England contributes its full share. 



ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 161 

This was established about 1837, and embraces a large array of 
the highest rank and talent in the kingdom, and a vast body of 
farmers, landlords, and others interested in agriculture. Its funds 
are large, arising from donations and an annual subscription of 
a guinea from each of its members ; but it has received no 
endowment from the government. Its objects comprehend every 
branch of husbandry and rm'al economy. It has a central office, 
or building, in Hanover Square, London, where the secretary of 
the society resides, and where the council of the society and 
other members hold weekly and monthly meetings, for the man- 
agement of the business of the society, and the discussion of 
agricultural subjects, and the reception of agricultural infor- 
mation. This conduces very much to the interest felt in the 
projects and operations of the society, and is the means of 
diffusing a great amount of valuable information. 

It has begun here the establishment of an agricultural library 
and museum, which presently must assume a considerable im- 
portance, and become curious and useful. The object of the 
library is to collect the most useful and valuable publications on 
subjects connected with agriculture, in all its various and kindred 
branches, including likewise geology, botany, agricultural chem- 
istry, engineering, and manufacturing, as far as they are con- 
nected with the making of agricultural implements, and the 
great agricultural operations of draining, embanking, irrigation, and 
other important farming processes. The object of its museum is to 
exhibit specimens of- agricultural productions, which are capable 
of preservation, seeds, plants, grasses, samples of wool, mineral 
manures, models and drawings of agricultural implements, and 
whatever, in any way, may conduce to the advancement of the 
science or practice of agriculture. It is obvious how very im- 
portant such an establishment must prove, by giving piTictical 
men an opportunity of inspecting, at their leisure, the most 
improved subjects of cultivation, the best grains, and the best 
grasses and vegetables, and, at the same time, the best tools and 
machines, with which to cultivate them. I have often urged the 
establishment of agricultural museums upon my countrymen, 
especially in the capitals of the states and of the United States, 
where the members of the different legislatures assemble. Com- 
ing, as they do, from different and distant parts of the country, 
they will be enabled to carry home information of the utmost 
14* 



162 EUROPEAN AGRICIJLTUKE. 

importance to the fanners, besides having their own knowledge 
advanced, and their own zeal quickened in this great cause. The 
commissioner of patents in Washington, distinguished by his 
indefatigable exertions for the advancement of agriculture, has 
already laid the foundation of such a collection, at the metropo- 
lis of the country, and in connection with his own department, 
where models of all patented agricultural machinery are always 
to be seen. It is to be hoped that the friends of an improved 
agriculture in the country will encourage and assist him in ex- 
tending his collection of valuable grains and seeds. There are 
few ways so little expensive, in which they may render so much 
service to the country. It would be desirable that the govern- 
ment should enjoin it upon the commanders of all their ships of 
war, visiting different parts of the globe, that they should collect 
and bring home such seeds and plants, and such models of im- 
plements, as would be likely to be of use. That universal vege- 
table, the potato, furnishing so much food to man and beast, and 
scarcely second to any in value, considering the multitudes whom 
it supplies, and the quantity of food it affords, is said to be an 
importation from South America, The cotton plant, a source of 
enormous wealth to the country, is likewise esteemed a foreign 
plant. 

Besides this, the Royal Agricultural Society issues a semi- 
yearly publication of valuable communications and papers, both 
on the science and practice of agriculture, which fall in its way, 
or are made to the society in reply to queries proposed for discus- 
sion and for information, upon which it offers premiums of a 
pecuniary or an honorary nature. 

The society, likewise, at some place in the country, easily 
accessible, hold an annual show or exhibition of animals, 
implements, and agricultural products, upon the best of which it 
awards premiums. This occupies, generally, four days. Tues- 
day is exclusively assigned to the several committees for the 
inspection of subjects of premium, in the way of implements 
and agricultural machinery, when no persons whatever, except- 
ing the committees and persons necessarily attendant vipon them, 
are admitted to the yard, so that they have a favorable opportu- 
nity of quiet inspection, uninterrupted by any interested or curi- 
ous parties ; Wednesday is devoted, in the same way, to the 
examination of the anini;il.s, and afterwards the yards are open 



ACTUAL IMPUOVEMENTS IN ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 163 

to the public upon payment of a reasonable entrance fee ; and on 
Fridays a public sale, at auction, is held of such animals, or imple- 
ments, as their owners are willing to dispose of in this way. The 
collection of people, on such occasions, from all parts of the coun- 
try, and, I may properly add, from all parts of the world, is im- 
mense. Two large public dinners are given on the occasion ; 
the one called the council dinner, on Wednesday, and the other, 
called the society^s dinner, on Thursday, when provision is made 
for fifteen hundred guests, in a pavilion erected for the purpose. 
These dinners are, in general, seasons of great hilarity, and pro- 
motive of sympathy in the great cause of agricultural improve- 
ment. If no other good comes of them to agriculture, they serve 
at least the purpose of consumption, and so quicken price and 
demand. 

On these occasions, the prizes are announced to the successful 
candidates ; and these premiums are given either in medals, plate, 
or money, and are received with no small degree of public and 
self-congratulation. 

The arrangements, in general, are made with great care. The 
animals are assorted in distinct classes, with separate committees 
for the examination of each class ; and the implements are placed 
according to their difierent designs and uses. It would be im- 
possible to convey an accurate or adequate impression of the 
number and variety of the animals affered, in such cases, for exhi- 
bition and premium. I have already given a list and the number 
of agricultural implements exhibited the last year at the Derby 
show ; but that conveys no idea of the ingenuity and skill 
evinced in their construction. One is led to conclude, from the 
inspection, that there is no operation or function, connected Avith 
human life and labor, for which mechanical labor does not attempt, 
and may not presently succeed in furnishing an instrument or 
machine. In many cases, a machine is any thing but a facility ; 
and not a few of the machines, both in their contrivance and the 
expensive and showy manner in which they are got up, evince 
pretty strongly the gauge which the contrivers and makers have 
taken of the understandings and pockets of the probable pur- 
chasers. They are seldom at a loss to put the pail under a full 
cow. 

In many respects, the arrangements are admirable, and well 



164 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. 

worthy of imitation.* Every possible efTort is made to secure an 
impartial decision among the competitors ; for besides that they 
are not suffered by their presence to influence the examiners, the 
examiners themselves are selected from among persons who are 
as far as possible disinterested, and not likely to be influenced. 
They are chosen, likewise, with a special reference, in their charac- 
ters and qualifications, to the nature of the subjects submitted ; 



* The terms on which the premiums for seed wheat are to be awarded are 
well Avorth tlie observation of other agricultural societies, and I therefore subjoin 
them. 

"SEED WHEAT. 

" I. Thirty Sovereigns, or a Piece of Plate of that value, will be given to tlie 
Exhibiter at the Meeting at Derby of the best 14 bushels of White Wheat, of the 
harvest of 1842, and grown by himself. 

" II. Thirty Sovereigns, or a Piece of Plate of tliat value, will be given to tlie 
Exhibiter at the Meeting at Derby of tlie best 14 bushels of Red Wheat, of the 
harvest of 1842, and grown by himself. 

" III. Twenty Sovereigns, or a Piece of Plate of that value, will be given to the 
Exhibiter at the Meeting at Derby of the best 14 bushels of Spring Wheat, of the 
harvest of 1842, and grown by himself. 

" Competitors are requested to send with their Wheat, specimens, fairly taken, 
of the same in the car, with the whole of the Straw, in a bundle not less than 
one foot in diameter, and with the roots attached. 
" [12 bushels of tlie Wheat will be sealed up by the Stewards, and one of the 
remainincr bushels of each variety will be exhibited as a sample to the public > 
the other being kept for comparison with the produce of tlie next year. At 
the General Meeting, in December, 1844, the Prizes will be awarded.] 
" The two best samples of each of these three classes of Wheat, without at that time 
distinguishing, in any of t'he cases, between the comparative merits of either 
sample, will be selected by the Judges, appointed for the meeting at Derby ; 
and will be sown, under the direction of the Society, (the Winter Wheals in 
the autumn of 1843, and the Spring Wheat not earlier than the 1st of March, 
1844,) by four farmers, who will make their report, upon which the prizes will 
be awarded, provided there be sufficient merit in any of the samples. Ten 
Sovereigns will be given at the Meeting at Derby to each Exhibiter whose 
wheat has been selected for trial. 

" *»* ■^''> variety of wheat icliich has been selected for trial at any previous show 
shall he qualified to compete." 

The following arc the instructions to the Judges on other subjects: — 
" As the object of the Society in giving the prizes for neat cattle, sheep, and 
pio-s, is to promote improvement in breeding stock, tlie Judges, in making their 
award, are instructed not to take into their consideration the present value to the 
butcher of animals exhibited, but to decide according to their relative merits for 
the purpose of breeding." 

"In the Class for horses, the Judge.s, in awarding the prizes, are instructed, in 
addition to symmetry, to take activity nnd strength into their consideration." 



ACTUAL l>Il'ROVE.M.-;.Vr:- ! ,' KN'.JMSH AfiRICULTUEE. 165 

and every pains is taken iii this way to secure the greatest apt- 
ness and talents. The name of the competitor is not given where 
It can be avoided, but only the number of tlie article presented. 
The rules of admission and competition are stringent and abso- 
lute, and no exceptions are, on any account, allowed. When, last 
year, a competitor attempted to introduce a machine out of sea- 
son, or in some way contrary to the published rules, and wrote to 
one of the agents of the society, that, if a silver key should be 
found necessary to its introduction, he begged him to use it, — 
this attempt at bribery was rejected with proper indignation by 
the society, and the individual concerned, though eminent as a 
machinist and a manufacturer, and offering every apology for 
his " indiscretion," was forever irrevocably excluded as a com- 
petitor for any of the premiums of the society. 

The society likewise offers premiums for essays, which are 
deemed deserving of such reward, upon any given subjects, and 
for reports on the agricultural condition and habits of different 
counties and districts. This has been the means of bringing out 
many valuable papers. Here, too, the decision is sought to be 
rendered as fair as possible ; for the name of the writer is not 
given with the essay, but under a separate and sealed envelope, 
which is not opened until the successful essay is announced ; and 
then the seal is broken, and the writer's name declared, in the 
presence of the society. 

The society likewise has a consulting chemist, a consulting 
engineer, a botanist, and a professor of the veterinary art, of 
whose services, in any desirable case, it avails itself. Some time 
since, it numbered on its lists more than 6500 members ; and has 
been, since that time, steadily on the increase. It is impossible 
to overrate the advantages which such a society brings with it to 
the agricultural community ; for, though it enrols among its mem- 
bers many gentlemen, who are mere amateurs in the profession, 
and take little interest, and have little knowledge of its practical 
details, yet, on the other hand, it combines, among the highest men 
in the kingdom, a very large amount of practical talent and skill 
— men of the most accurate observation, who carefully enter into 
the whole subject. There is another great and good influence, 
which it powerfully exerts, and which must not be overlooked. 
It gives a high respectability to the agricultural profession, and 
presents it as a pursuit, not. as has been too often said, for mere 



166 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

dolts aiid clod-hoppers, but for minds of the highest order, and 
for men of all conditions, from the prince to the peasant ; for " the 
king himself is served by the field." The prizes are contended 
for with an ardor little short of that which displays itself in the 
contests of political life, and received with a high sense of their 
value. I have seen, at the tables of some of the highest noble- 
men in the land, the premiums of agricultural success, exhibited 
in some form of plate, with more triumph than they would dis- 
play in the brilliant badges of their rank. 

7. Agricultural Society of Scotland. — The Highland and 
Agricultural Society of Scotland is an institution of a similar 
description, and of a longer standing, than the Royal Society of 
England. It is richly endowed, and as powerfully patronized, 
and has long rendered itself illustrious by its Journal, published 
quarterly, in Edinburgh. This Journal, for the ability with 
which it is managed, and which has been displayed also in the 
prize essays of the Highland Society, which are always published 
in connection with the Journal, has certainly no superior. The 
Scotch have been long distinguished for their acuteness and 
excellent management ; and the evidences of the justness of their 
pretensions in these respects, were too obvious and numerous, on 
my transient visit to the southern portions of Scotland, to leave 
any doubt of their just claims to the highest reputation. 
The exhibition of the society at Dundee, the last autumn, was, in 
the character and condition of its animals, in no respect, in my 
judgment, inferior to that at Derby, though the Scotch cattle 
present different varieties from those which are fashionable and 
most esteemed in England. The short horns and the Leicesters of 
England would be, as a stock, very poorly adapted to the bleak 
hills and cold climate of Scotland ; while the hardiness and thrift 
of the Scotch cattle and sheep show how well suited they are 
to the homes where they are bred, and whence they are sent, in 
immense droves, in certain seasons of the year, to the southern 
portions of the country. The general management of the Scotcli 
Agricultural Society docs not essentially differ from that of the 
English Royal Agricultural Society. The general exhibition at 
Dundee passed oil raucli in the same style as at Derby, except- 
ing that I thought the Scotch drank their toasts with a little 
more heartiness than the English — a characteristic of the country- 



RELATION OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. 167 

men of Burns. This is not the place for me to describe the differ- 
ent breeds of stock shown at either place, or the various imple- 
ments exhibited. This I propose to do in another part of my 
Reports, with all the particularity which my friends can desire. 
The stock shown at Dundee would bear a comparison with the best 
stock shown any where ; and the fact is too well known to need 
any confirmation of mine, that in point of intelligence and agri- 
cultural skill, and in point of success, — the best test of intelli- 
gence and skill, — the Scotch farmers yield the palm to none. 



XX. — RELATION OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. 

The holdings of many of the Scotch farmers are very large ; 
and their farms are generally held under leases of nineteen and 
twenty-one yeai's. One would be led to infer that the terms on 
which the landlords live with their tenants, in Scotland, must be 
honorable and just to both parties, since renewals are common : 
the same estates have been, in many instances, in the same fam- 
ilies for a century, and the expenses incurred, in some cases, by 
tenants, in the erection of permanent buildings and other fixtures, 
are very heavy ; showing the confidence of the tenant in his 
landlord. One farm was pointed out to me where the tenant had 
recently died, leaving only one child, an infant son. In this case, 
that the lease might be retained in the family, three of the neigh- 
boring farmers had agreed to take the whole management of the 
estate until the young man came of age. In such cases, there is 
very little diflference between a lease and a freehold in fee-simple. 
1 carmot say, however, that the tenant is. raised above all depend- 
ence on his landlord, or that removals do not sometimes take 
place under circumstances of great hardship. In one case, which 
came under my knowledge, a farm had been withdrawn, or. 
rather, the renewal of the lease refused, though it had been in 
the occupation of the same family for many years, on the ground 
of political opposition and prejudice, the avowed opinions and 
votes of the tenant not coinciding with those of the landlord. 
It is easy to believe tliat this may often happen, though any 



168 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

direct influence of t'his kind would be likely to meet the repro- 
bation of the public. In one case, in England, to my inquiries 
whether the tenant was not expected to vote with the landlord, 
the farmer replied that his own politics were opposed to the poli- 
tics of his landlord ; and that, when taking his lease, to his great 
regret, he had pledged himself to remain neutral, and withhold 
his vote — a course by which many overwise and prudent people 
think that they escape the responsibility of the duty, whereas, in 
truth, by so doing they virtually give a vote to their opponents. 
In another case, the reply of two very intelligent and substantial 
farmers was, that they were at liberty to vote as they pleased : 
but it was almost the only way in which they could show their 
respect to, and evince their sense of the kindness of, their land- 
lord, and they felt it therefore a duty of gratitude to vote with 
him. We are not beyond this influence even in our democratic 
communities. The voting by ballot may seem to give a perfect 
security ; but this is invaded or destroyed when the candidates 
of a party are publicly prescribed, and the votes given are in a 
printed form ; so difficult is it, under any circumstances, to main- 
tain a perfect freedom and independence, and in practical life to 
realize our ideal theories. But politics are not my province ; nor 
should I have thus far ventured upon them, but as connected 
with the important relation of tenant and landlord, in which I 
know my countrymen feel the strong interest of curiosity. I 
shall, perhaps, excite some surprise in stating my belief that the 
manner in which farms are held here, on hire for a year, or on 
lease for a term of years, rather than being owned by the occu- 
pants, is itself a powerful instrument or incentive to agricultural 
improvement. In the United States, where farms are owned by 
the occupant, the farmer seldom keeps any account, and it matters 
not much to him what is the result of the year's management. 
The effect of this is to render a man negligent and indifferent to 
success or loss. But when, at the end of every six months, the 
rent must be paid, it is not a matter of indifference whether his 
farming turns out Avell or ill ; for not only the labor employed is 
to be paid for, but the rent of the farm must be punctually dis- 
charged. This consequently compels him to make every exertion 
by which he may be assisted to meet his obligations. He finds 
no room for idleness or neglect ; and the continuance of his pos- 
session depends upon his good management and the punctual 



RELATION OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. 169 

payment of the rent. This prompts to watchfulness, skill, ex- 
periment, and improvement ; and especially it gives to farming a 
commercial or mercantile character, and obliges the farmer to 
keep accounts, and so to learn the exact pecuniary result of his 
operations — a matter in which the farmers of the United States, 
as far as my observation goes, who are the owners of the farms 
which they occupy, are almost universally deficient. The strict 
responsibility to which the farmers are here held by their land- 
lords, is undoubtedly a material element in their success. At the 
same time, where the occupation is from year to year, and leases 
are refused on the part of the landlords, as is generally the case in 
England, — though in Scotland leases are almost universal, — the 
effect must be to prevent or discourage substantial improvements, 
as few persons will be inclined to make such improvements with 
an uncertainty of continuance. It is a fact, however, Avhich may 
create some surprise, that many farmers are unwilling to take 
leases when landlords would be willing to grant them. But this 
happens only when there is a perfect confidence on both sides ; 
the tenant has entire reliance upon the honor and liberality of the 
landlord, and the landlord is equally confident of the good con- 
duct and management of his tenant. An excellent landlord, in 
Lincolnshire, says he considers himself bound to continue his old 
tenants and their children in possession, in preference to any 
other tenant, as long as they choose to remain, unless some 
extraordinary contingency presents itself; and virtually admits 
on their part a property in the soil. The great length of time 
during which families, on his estates, have held their possessions 
from father to son, shows that he acts upon the most liberal prin- 
ciples ; and the condition of his tenants, and their great improve- 
ments, evince that his honorable conduct secures their entire 
confidence. It cannot be doubted, however, that the uncertainty 
of continuance, the absolute power of discharge on the part of 
the landlord, the risk of his caprice, and the possibility of a new 
one coming in possession, " who might not remember Joseph, but 
forget him," must have some effect in preventing or discouraging 
improvements. 

A farm which is well managed cannot change tenants without 

great inconvenience and evil on both sides. On several very large 

estates, which I have visited, the occupancy had been in the same 

families for a large portion of a century, and there seemed not the 

15 



170 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

slightest apprehension of any change on either side. A good 
tenant is evidently almost as important to his landlord as his con- 
tinuance on the estate can be to himself ; and where, under such 
circumstances, substantial and permanent improvements are to be 
made, the landlord himself bears a portion of the expense. In 
draining, for example, the landlord furnishes the tiles, and the 
farmer makes the drains and lays them. A skilful and intelligent 
farmer, worth having as a tenant, would hardly be found willing 
to take a farm for a year, without an expectation of a much 
longer continuance, and certainly would not, under such an oc- 
cupation, attempt any improvements but at the risk or expense 
of the landlord. In Scotland, where leases are, in general, for 
nineteen or twenty-one years, if the farmer has seven years of 
unexpended lease, he is expected to pay a third of the expense 
of any permanent fixtures or improvements; if fourteen years, he 
is expected to pay two thirds, and the landlord one ; if the whole 
term, the whole expenses are deemed properly chargeable to him. 
I confess, under the best circumstances, I should greatly prefer 
being an owner or freeholder, to being a tenant. There is an 
excessive caution which characterizes some shrewd calculators, 
who consider the value of a property diminished, where the lease 
is limited even to nine hundred and ninety-nine years ; but, with- 
out any sympathy with such persons, there is, at least, a gratifica- 
tion to a man's self-esteem, to feel that he is " the monarch of 
what he surveys," and that whatever improvements he makes 
upon his estate will enure to the lasting benefit of himself or his 
heirs. In a pecuniary view, however, it is really matter of in- 
difference whether the occupant pays a reasonable rent for the 
land as tenant, or, as the owner of it, loses the interest of the cap- 
ital invested in the purchase of the soil. There are few cases, as 1 
have before observed, where the rents paid equal the legal interest 
of the money which the lands would command, if offered for sale. 
Certainly, as far as my observation goes, — and I have seen some- 
what both of landlords and tenants, — there prevails a disposition, 
and there are the strongest inducements, to cultivate a mutually- 
good understanding between the parties. There is, in general, 
no more reason to fear that landlords will be oppressive and 
unjust, than that tenants will bo wasteful, negligent, and fraudu- 
lent. Power is always a hazardous possession, and always lia- 
ble to abuse, and cannot, therefore, be too much guarded and 



RELATION OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. 171 

limited in every condition of life. The abuses of power are not, 
liowever, peculiar to persons occupying a high condition in 
society, but are as often found among the lowest, who seem to 
iiave nothing else but the ability to injure and exert it most 
cruelly when they are most loudly claiming compassion for 
themselves, as the victims of injustice. I believe there is a great 
deal more abuse of power on the part of farmers towards their 
laborers, than on the part of landlords towards their tenants. 
The farmers can protect themselves ; the laborers, in general, are 
without power. Indeed, the more cultivated and improved is 
the education of a man, and the higher the condition which he 
occupies in society, the stronger are the inducements to a just and 
honorable conduct, not only in his enlarged mind, but in the 
increased value of character to such a man. In Ireland, the 
middle-man, who comes between the landlord and the poor ten- 
ants, who there are themselves laborers, and especially those 
middle-men who are themselves subletters of the soil, are always 
feared for their severity and oppression. How far a man's politi- 
cal independence is affected by his relation to his landlord, is 
another consideration. A man living under such a constitution 
of government as that of England, unless he is himself an office- 
seeker, or dependent upon the emoluments of public office, will 
not deem this of so much importance as many might consider it ; 
and if he makes up his judgment from the representation which 
the minority in a republican or elective government always give 
of the character and measures of the majority, he may be led to 
conclude that his chance of being protected in his rights, and 
secured in his person and property, is as good under an hereditary 
government, or one chosen for him by others, as under one in the 
choice of which he himself, with others, is permitted to give his 
suffrage. I would not be thought to undervalue political liberty : 
and, in my opinion, human wisdom has never devised a constitu- 
tion of government so just and so favorable to the happiness of 
its subjects as that of my own country. But I have been too 
often in the minority not to have learned that a majority com- 
posed of thousands may be as despotic as a single tyrant ; and I 
am not unaware that the position occupied by the governments 
of all civilized countries, is, at the present day, very different 
from what it was a century ago. As the reformation, under 
Luther, gave a blow to the doctrine of the infallibility of the 



172 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

church, from which it can never recover, so the successful asser- 
tion of the right of revohition against oppression, in 1776, read a 
lesson to all arbitrary governments, which is not likely soon to 
be forgotten. Under any form of government, the great security 
for the subject is, that they who govern shall be equally affected 
by their own measures as they who are governed ; and in 
countries so free and enlightened as Great Britain and the United 
States, whoever may rule, no measures of extreme injustice or 
wrong are likely to be long endured. There is a force in public 
opinion which can scarcely be resisted, and which is more power- 
ful than any mere legal enactments. What is mainly to be desired 
is, that education should be so general in its extension, and so 
elevated and just in its character, that public opinion may be 
wisely formed, and be not only a commanding, but a safe and 
worthy guide. 

The form or conditions of lease, in England, somewhat difier 
in different places ; but the main terms are every where the same. 
Leases, generally, are drawn up in an exact form, and become 
sealed and legal instruments. The farm is entered upon in the 
spring, and the rent is made payable semi-annually. The mode 
of cultivation is generally prescribed by the landlord, from which 
the tenant is not at liberty to depart. Two white crops are seldom 
permitted to succeed each other without intervention upon the 
same land. The green produce is required to be fed upon the 
place ; and if hay or straw is sold, an equivalent quantity of ma- 
nure is required to be brought on. All substantial improvements 
are the subject of special agreement ; and the tenant is never 
allowed to cut down any tree or timber upon the place, or other- 
wise to commit any waste. Where a farm is to be quit, or entered 
upon by a new tenant, the going-out tenant is at liberty to come 
in to gather the crops which he himself has sown. 

There is a class of men, in England, of which we know nothing 
in the United States ; these are called land surveyors or valuers. 
These are generally persons of experience and judgment, who 
examhie the condition of the place, and estimate what would be 
a fair rent to be paid ; and by their opinion the parties are usually 
governed. Such a person is often employed to estimate the value 
of growing crops, where an allowance is to be made by the in- 
coming to the out-going tenant. This professional man, if well 
qualified for his office, may be highly useful ; and such a course 



GAfllE AND THE GAMK LAWS. 173 

is likely to render the transaction more just than where it partakes 
more of an accidental or arbitrary character, where one party may 
be led by his caprice to demand too much, or be betrayed by his 
ignorance to obtain too little ; or the other party may be driven by 
his necessities, or led by a mistaken judgment of the capacities of 
the farm, to take it upon very hard terms. The taxes and tithes 
are usually paid by the tenant ; but their amount is always con- 
sidered in determining the rent, so that, properly speaking, they 
are paid by the landlord, and not by the tenant. The leasing of 
farms, in the- United States, is quite rare, and but in few cases is 
it ai-ranged by any established rule. In New England, in such 
cases, matters are conducted most loosely. Farms are frequently 
'■taken to the halves," which is understood to imply that the 
farmer returns half of all the produce grown to the owner ; but 
the landlord is almost entirely in the power of the farmer ; and, 
after the farmer has, as is but too common, applied to his own 
use about half the produce, he divides with the owner the half 
which remains. If the owner furnishes implements, the farmer 
returns them as good as he received them ; and, if he furnishes 
stock, as on a breeding or a dairy farm, the tenant pays the legal 
interest upon the cost, makes good the stock received when he 
quits the farm, which is generally settled by valuers or appraisers, 
and divides with his landlord one half the increase. Our prac- 
tices, in this matter, are various and unsettled ; and, as long as 
the hiring of farms continues with us to be so infrequent, — and 
it is likely to continue so while land remains as easy to be pur- 
chased as it now is, — no exact method will be introduced. 



XXI. — GAME AND THE GAME LAWS. 

The farmers in the United States are happily free from one evil 
which presses heavily upon the English farmers ; and that is, the 
nuisance of what is here called game, and the curse of the game 
laivs. Pheasants, partridges, grouse, hares, and rabbits, are here 
called game, and are protected, by the most severe law^s, for the 
benefit of sportsmen who either own or lease the territory on 
15* 



174 EUROPEAN AGIUCULTUnE. 

which they find them, and pay a tax to the government for the 
privilege of shooting or coursing. The hares and rabbits are ex- 
tremely destructive to the farmers' crops, and the complaints of 
them are universal. It is considered that five hares, or seven 
rabbits, consume as much as one sheep, besides a considerable 
amount of incidental damage ; and it is stated that there were 
sold, from one farm, in one year, for the benefit of the landlord, 
no less than two thousand hares and rabbits, which was a tax 
upon the farmer equal to the support of three hundred sheep. 
They do great damage to nuich of the produce which they do 
not consume, in biting the turnips and in trampling down the 
grain. A farmer is liable to imprisonment or transportation if he 
destroys them, even when committing havoc upon his crops. An 
allowance is imdoubtedly made, in some cases, though not in all, 
for these depredations and injuries. It is obvious, however, that, 
in most cases, an equivalent can hardly be made, not for the loss 
merely, but the immeasurable vexation, which they occasion. I 
entirely accord in the unanimous opinion of the farmers, whom 
I have met with, that, with the exception of feathered game, the 
game laws inflict a most serious injury upon the agricultural 
interest. Of their moral tendency this is not the place for me to 
speak; but the innumerable convictions for poaching — that is, 
entrapping or stealing game — with which the judicial calendars 
are filled, — and some trials for which charges I have attended, — 
and the several murders of gamekeepers which have occurred even 
within the last year, present a subject of serious consideration for 
those who know that one great preventive of crime is to remove 
the facilities and inducements to it, and that whoever, voluntarily, 
and without necessity, presents a temptation to crime, necessarily 
shares in its responsibility. It is a subject which never can be 
too strongly urged upon just and reflecting minds, how much the 
manners and pleasures of the upper, the educated, and the influ- 
ential classes, affect the morals of those beneath them. They 
inflict, oftentimes, an infinitely deeper injury than any injury to 
property can be. In the United States, though there are laws to 
protect from extinction races of birds and of fish, there are none 
which confer any exclusive privileges for the capture or destruc- 
tion of that which Heaven has made as free as water and air, 
though any man would be liable to a penalty if he injured his 
neighbor in pursuing it. 



THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETV" OF IRELAND. 175 



XXII. — THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF 
IRELAND. 

The Royal Irish Agriciihural Society, for the general improve- 
ment of agriculture in Ireland, is of more recent origin than tlie 
English Royal Agricultural Society, and is established upon the 
same general plaiL It already embraces a large array of num- 
bers, combining men of the highest rank and wealth with others 
in more humble condition. It is intended to hold its annual 
shows in different parts of the country ; and it bestows large 
sums in premiums, — thirty sovereigns, or one hundred and fifty 
dollars, being the prize, for example, in the class of bulls, and 
other prizes of proportionate value for other objects. It has 
adopted one very wise provision : in the high prizes for the best 
live stock, it opens the competition to the whole kingdom, with- 
out restriction, so that specimens are brought from England and 
Scotland, of cattle, sheep, and swine ; and thus the Irish are 
enabled to see, and compare with them, what has been done by 
others, and in what respects they exceed or fall short of them. 
This presents the most powerful stimulus to excel ; whereas, if 
the competition were confined wholly to themselves, not know- 
ing what has been done by others, they might be satisfied with 
inferior attainments. At the agricultural show at Dublin, which 
I had the pleasure to attend, a- good many animals were exhibited 
from Scotland and England, which were of a superior character, 
and which gave the Irish farmers a favorable opportunity, not 
only of seeing the favorite kinds in the sister kingdoms, but the 
degree of perfection, to Avhich, by careful breeding and keeping, 
they had been carried. 

When I have recommended, as I have repeatedly done, the 
adoption of the same liberal practice among the county societies 
of Massachusetts, and with other societies in New York, I have 
always been met with tlie argument, that this would be sending 
the money paid in premiums out of the county, or out of the state, 
which is an objection unworthy of consideration; for of what 
consequence is the money, if we can get tlie improvement .•' 
The object of a society, in all its measures and premiums, should 
be the improvement of agriculture and husbandry. The distri- 



176 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

bution of money is only an instrument to effect this end. B}^ 
what means that object is most sm-ely to be attained, is the only 
matter worth inquiry. Nothing is so likely to serve this end as 
seeing and ascertaining the degree of improvement to which the 
art has any where, at any time, or by any persons, been ad- 
vanced ; and how far, and how effectually, in our condition, we 
may adopt the same means of progress. There is, in my opin- 
ion, nothing less worthy of a liberal mind, nor less friendly to 
advancement in any thing valuable and useful, than a miserable 
self-conceit, which passes often under the name of patriotism, 
but which is a spurious metal, and a mere counterfeit of that noble 
virtue. To value a thing because it is American, or because it 
is English, or because it is Irish, without regard to its substantial 
qualities, is worthy only of a child ; and a mind bent upon im- 
provement, and capable of any great progress, rises above such 
mean prejudices ; values things according to their intrinsic merit ; 
acknowledges excellence wherever excellence exists, and seeks 
that which is good, wherever good is to be found. We should 
dismiss all pride in our own improvements when others have 
gone beyond us. The advances which others have made, b(^ 
they who they may, should only be with us an incentive to 
new exertions ; and so far from indulging the slightest regret that 
they have surpassed us, if we discover that to be the fact, let us 
rejoice in what has been accomplished, and regard all improve- 
ments, of every description, as so much gained for science or for 
art, for general comfort or advancement, and as the common 
property of human nature and the world. This is the truest and 
noblest patriotism, which heartily exults in every good conferred 
upon its own community, or its own country, and, in the spirit of 
an enlarged philanthropy, seeks for its universal extension. To 
a good mind, the good is not diminished by being the more 
widely diffused. 

No benevolent and just man can look upon poor, suffering Ire- 
land, a land full of brilliant minds and generous hearts, and 
whose eventful history is resplendent with a galaxy of the most 
noble sacrifices and services of patriotism and philanthropy, 
Avithout rejoicing in any good which comes to her, or offers 
itself in prospect. Her Agricultural Society promises to prove of 
the higliest benefit to a country, the soil of which is capable of a 
most productive cultivation, where labor presents itself in unlim- 



THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF IRELAND. 177 

ited abundance, and where crowds, almost without number, of 
the wretched, the half-clothed, and the hungry, demand, in tones 
which would touch any heart not made of stone, an opportunity 
of satisfying their own wants by their own labor, and of obtain- 
ing from the willing earth that which a beneficent Providence 
has formed it to yield for the subsistence and comfort of his 
creatures. 

The exhibition at Dublin was, in various respects, creditable 
to the society. The collection of grasses and grains, dried speci- 
mens of which were exhibited by several nursery-men, were 
extremely beautiful, and highly instructive to the farmers. They 
were presented in a form which enabled them to compare Avith 
each other, and in some measure to determine, their relative 
qualities. Numerous specimens of flax, and of linen, and 
lawn which has been long a distinguished product of Ireland, 
likewise attracted deserved admiration. Specimens of soils, and 
mineral and artificial manures, and exemplifications of different 
modes of draining, and models of cottages and farm buildings, were 
also exhibited, and suggested improved and economical modes of 
construction. I saw, likewise, an American straw-cutting ma- 
chine, very slightly varied from the original, and which had been 
patented in Ireland, of which I could not complain, after many 
instances of similar plagiarism, which I had seen, in my own 
country, exhibited as rare specimens of Yankee ingenuity. Of 
the morality of such tricks, if so they are to be called, I leave 
my readers to judge ; but in other respects, from various things 
which have come under my notice, the account seems pretty 
fairly balanced between us. 

The exhibition of poultry attracted much attention, and, 
though an humble object, was not unworthy of observation. It 
was principally confined to geese, ducks, and dunghill fowls. 
The Malay and Java fowls, specimens of which are to be found 
in the United States, were very large, and appeared almost to 
have some affinity with the ostrich family. It was stated that, 
when dressed, they would weigh from eight to ten pounds, which 
is the size of a common turkey. The valuable race of Dorkings 
was shown in great numbers, as being highly approved : and 
likewise some crested Spanish birds, which were reputed most 
abundant layers — a property which, in my opinion, depends 
as much upon plenty of feed, and houses where a mild tempera- 



178 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ture is preserved, as upon any peculiarity of constitution. Of 
game-cocks I saw none. The inhuman sport, which once 
brought these animals into fashion, is, as far as I can learn, now 
not permitted nor known. The cause of humanity has certainly 
accomplished much in the abolition of the cruel games of cock- 
fighting, dog-fighting, bull-baiting, and bloody boxing-matches. 
The various military dresses, most brilliant and magnificent as 
they were in themselves, and which were seen plentifully 
sprinkled about the show-yard, and in the streets of Dublin, indi- 
cated, however, that there were other game-cocks in training, for 
purposes far more cruel and unchristian, whom, with their glitter- 
ing swords and bristling bayonets, I seldom pass without a 
shudder ; and to the necessity, if there be any, of whose profes- 
sion and employment, I can only desire as speedy and as effec- 
tual an end may be put. The fights of the lower orders of 
animals, for which they have been trained, and to which they 
have been spuiTcd on by the brutality of a higher order of ani- 
mals, assuming to be rational and moral, are, alas ! but a melan- 
choly counterpart of scenes which have covered human history 
all over with blood, and stained its pages with crimes of a demo- 
niacal malignity and revenge, vulgarly, and by a misnomer which, 
in a Christian country, makes one's heart ache, called heroism 
and glory. The native race of cows, principally from the county 
of Kerry, which were exhibited on the occasion, was quite re- 
markable. They are much smaller than any thing of the kind 
which I have ever seen, and can have little value out of the 
country where they are reared, and to whose scanty pastures and 
bleak hills they are said to be peculiarly adapted. They are 
generally black, kept at a very small expense, and ai'e said, for 
their size, to yield an extraordinary amount of milk. A bull of 
a year old of this stock, to which a prize of five sovereigns was 
awarded, was so diminutive, that I could, without difficulty, have 
lifted my leg over his back. The sight of this animal solved a 
problem in history which has always puzzled me. It is said of 
Milo, that, beginning with a calf, and carrying him upon his 
back every day, the increase of weight was so gradual, that the 
limit of his personal strength could not be determined, and he 
continued to lift him after he became an ox. If it were a Kerry 
ox, the otherwise intrinsic improbability of the story entirely 
ceases. This Kerry bull was little larger than a goat, and should 



MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 179 

form a part of the retinue of Tom Thumb, that distinguished 
American production, who has excited the most extraordinary 
sensation in England. 



XXIII. — MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 

There is an estabhshment connected with the agriculture of 
Ireland, which is in the immediate neighborhood of Dublin, and 
which I have visited with the greatest pleasure, and that is a 
Model Farm and an Agricultural School. The national govern- 
ment have determined to appropriate seventy-five thousand 
pounds annually to the cause of education in Ireland, to be dis- 
tributed, in proportions corresponding to the subscriptions of 
mdividuals for the same objects, in parts of the country where 
education is most needed. It is considered, and with good reason, 
that the great want, among the people, is a want of knowledge 
in applying and using the means of subsistence within their 
reach ; that there is no indisposition on their part to labor ; that 
there is as yet an ample extent of uncultivated land capable of 
being redeemed and rendered productive ; and that a principal 
source of the wretchedness, and want, and starvation, which pre- 
vail in some parts of this country, often to a fearful extent, is 
attributable to the gross ignorance of the laboring classes of the 
best modes of agriculture and of rural economy. With this con- 
viction upon their minds, the commissioners have determined to 
connect with all their rural schools a course of teaching in scien- 
tific and practical agriculture, communicating a knowledge of the 
simple elements of agricultural chemistry ; of the best modes 
and operations of husbandry which have been adopted in any 
country ; of the nature, and character, and uses, of the vegetables 
and plants necessary or useful to man or beast ; of the improved 
kinds of live stock, and of the construction and use of the most 
improved and most approved farming implements and ma- 
chinery. With these views, it is their intention to train their 
schoolmasters, and to send out such men as are apt and qualified 
to teach these most useful branches. For this purpose the 
government have established this model farm, which was begun in 



180 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

1838, and which lias ah'eady, in a greater or less measure, quali- 
fied and sent out seven hundred teachers. To my mind it seems 
destined to confer the most important benefits upon Ireland, and 
I may add upon the world, for so it happens under the benig- 
nant arrangements of the Divine Providence, the benefits of 
every good measure or effort for the improvement of mankind 
proceed, by a sort of reduplication, to an unlimited extent ; these 
teachers shall instruct their pupils, and these pupils become in 
their turn the teachers of others ; and the good seed, thus sown 
and widely scattered, go on yielding its constantly-increasing 
products, to an extent which no human imagination can 
measure. Three thousand schoolmasters are at this moment 
demanded for Ireland, and the government are determined to 
supply them. Happy is it for a country, and honorable to 
human nature, when, instead of schemes of avarice, and dreams 
of ambition, and visions of conquest, at the dreadful expense of 
the comfort, and liberty, and lives, of the powerless and unpro- 
tected, the attention of those who hold the destinies of their 
fellow-beings in their hands is turned to their improvement,, their 
elevation, their comfort, and their substantial welfare. 

The Model Farm and Agricultural School is at a place called 
Glasnevin, about three miles from Dublin, on a good soil. The 
situation is elevated and salubrious, embracing a wide extent of 
prospect of sea and land, of plain and mountain, of city and 
country, combining the busy haunts of men, and the highest im- 
provements of art and science, with Vv^hat is most picturesque and 
charming in rural scenery, presenting itself in its bold mountains 
and deep glens, in its beautiful plantations, its cultivated fields, 
and its wide and glittering expanse of ocean. The scenery in 
the neighborhood of Dublin, with its fertile valleys, and the 
mountains of Wicklow, of singularly grand and beautiful 
formation, bounding the prospect for a considerable extent, is 
among the richest which the eye can take in ; and at the going 
down of the sun in a fine summer evening, when the long ridge 
of the mountains seemed bordered with a fringe of golden fire, it 
carried my imagination back, with an emotion which those only 
who feel it can understand, to the most beautiful and pictu- 
resque parts of Yermont, in the neighborhood of Lake Champlain. 
I have a strong conviction of the powerful and beneficial 
influence of fine natural scenery, where there is a due measure 



MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. ISl 

of the endowment of ideality, upon the intellectual and moral 
character ; and I would, if possible, surround a place of education 
with those objects in nature best suited to elevate and enlarge 
the mind, and stir the soul of man from its lowest depths. It is 
at the shrine of nature, in the temple pillared by the lofty moun- 
tains, and whose glowing arches are resplendent with inextin- 
guishable fires, that the human heart is most profoundly impressed 
with the unutterable grandeur of the great object of worship. 
It is in fields radiant with their golden harvests, and every where 
oifering, in their rich fruits and products, an unstinted compensa- 
tion to human toil, and the most liberal provision for human 
subsistence and comfort, and in pastures and groves animated 
with the expressive tokens of enjoyment, and vocal with the 
grateful hymns of ecstasy, among the animal creation, that man 
gathers up those evidences of the faithful, unceasing, and un- 
bounded goodness of the divine Providence, which most deeply 
touch, and often overwhelm, the heart. The Model Farm and 
School, at Glasnevin, has connected with it fifty-two English 
acres of land, the Avhole of which, with the exception of an 
acre occupied by the farm buildings, is under cultivation, and a 
perfect system of rotation of crops. The master of the school 
pays for this land a rent of five pounds per acre, and taxes 
and expenses carry the rent to eight pounds per acre. Twelve 
poor boys, or lads, live constantly with him, for whose education 
and board, besides their labor, he receives eight shillings sterling 
per week. They work, as well as I could understand, about six 
hours a day, and devote the rest of the time to study, or learning. 
The course of studies is not extensive, but embraces the most 
common and useful branches of education, such as arithmetic, 
geography, natural philosophy, and agriculture, in all its 
scientific and practical details. They have an agricultural 
examination, or lecture, every day. I had the gratification of 
listening to an examination of fourteen of these young men, 
brought out of the field from their labor ; and cheerfully admit 
that it was eminently successful, and in the highest degree cred- 
itable both to master and pupil. Besides these young men, 
who live on the farm, the young men in Dublin, at the normal 
school, who are preparing themselves for teachers of the national 
schools, are required to attend at the farm and assist in its labors 
a portion of the time, that they may become thoroughly ac- 
16 



182 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

quainted with scientific and practical agriculture in all its 
branches, and be able to teach it ; the government being deter- 
mined that it shall form an indispensable part of the school 
instruction throughout the island. The great objects, then, of 
the establishment, are to qualify these young men for teachers by 
a thorough and practical education in the science, so far as it has 
reached that character, and in the most improved methods and 
operations of agriculture. Besides this, it is intended to furnish 
an opportunity to the sons of men of wealth, who may be placed 
here as pupils, to acquire a practical knowledge of, and a familiar 
insight into, all the details of farming. This must prove of the 
highest importance to them in the management of their own 
estates. 

The superintendent was pleased to show me his accounts m 
detail, which evinced, as far as I could ascertain, a successful and 
profitable management ; but as there were several material 
elements to be taken into the calculation, I shall not speak with 
any confidence on this subject, without further information, 
which cannot now be had, but which I shall take pains to give 
in the fullest manner hereafter. 

As the crops were uncommonly fine, and the whole cultivation 
and management, as far as it appeared, excellent, I shall detail 
some few particulars in a cursory manner. 

The first object was to illustrate the best system of rotation of 
crops ; and three systems of alternate husbandry were going on ; 
one of a course of three crops, one of five, and one of nine ; and 
one especial object pursued in one department of the farm was to 
show the most eligible course of management of a single acre of 
land, so as to give an example of the best system of cottage 
husbandry for the poor man, who might have only a small allot- 
ment of land, and whose object would be to feed a cow and a 
pig, and to get what supplies he could for his family. Such 
lessons, it is obvious, must appear of the highest importance in 
Ireland, when we consider the condition of its peasantry, and 
cannot be without their advantages to every cultivator of land. 

Another object aimed at is to show that a farm is capable of 
being kept in condition from its own resources, and from the 
consumption of the principal part of the produce upon the land. 
No manure is ever purchased here ; and the manager professed 
to have an ample supply. Six years' trial, with crops of the 



MODEL FARM AND AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 183 

highest productiveness, and indicating no diminution, but rather 
an increase of yield, seems to have satisfactorily established this 
point. The provisions for saving all the manure, both liquid and 
solid, for managing the compost heap, and for increasing its 
quantity by the addition of every species of refuse that can be 
found, are complete. The stock consists of seventeen cows, one 
bull, six young stock, two horses, and one pony ; and they are all 
carefully stall-fed, in clean, well-littered, and well-ventilated 
stables, with ample space before and behind them, and turned 
out for recreation, in a yard, about two hours in a day. The 
manure heap is in the rear of the stables ; is always carefully made 
up, and kept well covered with soil, or sods, or weeds, so as to 
prevent evaporation, retain the effluvia, and increase the quan- 
tity. The liquid manure is collected, by spouts, from the stables, 
into a tank, from which it is, as often as convenient, pumped up, 
and thrown, by an engine pipe attached to the pump, over the 
heap ; and that portion of it which is not retained, but passes off, 
is caught again in another tank, and again returned upon the 
heap by the same process as before. The skilful manager of the 
farm prefers this method to that of applying the liquid manure 
directly from a sprinkling machine upon his fields. Either mode 
may have its peculiar advantages, which I shall not now discuss. 
The object of each is to save and to use the whole ; and I am 
determined, so important do I deem it, never to lose a fair oppor- 
tunity of reminding the farmers that the liquid manure of any 
animal, if properly saved and applied, is of equal value as the solid 
portions ; but in most places this is wholly lost. The manure 
for his crops he prefers to plough in in the autumn ; and the ex- 
traordinary crops of potatoes grown by him are powerful testimo- 
nies in favor of his management. 

His potatoes give an average yield of eighteen tons (gross 
weight) to an English acre, which, allowing fifty-six pounds to 
the bushel, would be seven hundred and twenty bushels. He has 
grown twenty-two tons to an English acre. Either of these quan- 
tities, in New England and in Old England, would be considered 
a magnificent crop. He plants his potatoes either in ridges thirty 
inches asunder, with the potatoes or sets eighteen inches apart 
in the drills, or else in what here is called the lazy-bed fashion, 
which is a common practice, but which, as it respects the labor 
required, is altogether misnamed. In this case, the land is dug 



184 EUROPEAN ACniCULTURE. 

or ploughed, and thrown into beds of about three feet wide, first 
formed by ridging or back-furrowing with the plough, and after- 
wards covered with earth, thrown from a ditch between the beds 
about eighteen inches in width, and running between all the 
beds. After this bed is smoothed off, the potatoes are planted 
upon it, in rows, crosswise, at the distance of eighteen inches by 
thirty inches apart, and they are then covered with about four 
inches of earth taken out of the intermediate ditch with a spade. 
After the potatoes are fairly above ground, they have a second 
covering of four inches of earth, as before, and this comprehends 
the whole of their cidtivation in the lazy-hed fashion. When 
they are planted in drills or ridges, the space between the ridges 
is never suffered to be distiubed by a plough, but is simply dug 
with a spade, as it is an important object to avoid injuring the 
young fibrous roots of the plant, upon which the tubers are formed. 
The potatoes are kept, in this way, with an occasional applica- 
tion of the hand to the weeds, entirely clean ; and the luxuriance 
of their growth throughout a large field, as far as my observation 
goes, was never surpassed. By his management of his manure, 
sprinkling the heap with the liquid portions, and so keeping up, 
through the summer, a slight but constant fermentation, not only 
all the weeds thrown upon it are rotted, but the seeds of these 
weeds are effectually destroyed. He says the largest crop of 
potatoes which he ever produced was had in a field where the 
sets were placed over the whole field, at a distance of a yard each 
way from each other. He prefers always planting whole pota- 
toes, of a medium size, to cutting them. He showed me a 
portion of the field, which had been planted with cuttings of 
potatoes, sent him by a friend, of a new and valuable kind, and 
which he cut with a view to planting more land ; but the differ- 
ence in their appearance was most marked, and showed an 
inferiority of as one to three to those which were planted whole. 
Ten bushels of seed he considers suflicient for planting an acre. 
His turnips promised extremely well. I remarked to him that 
they were sown in the drills very thickly. He replied that he 
had never lost his crop by the fly, and he attributed his success 
to two circumstances — the first, to planting his seed two inches 
deep, by which means the roots of the plant became extended and 
strong before the plant showed itself above ground ; and the 
second, by sowing a large quantity of seed ; if the flies took a 



MODEL FARM AND AGKICULTURAL SCHOOL. 185 

portion of the plants, he wonld probably have an ample sujDply 
left. He suiFcrs them to get somewhat advanced before they are 
thinned, and then is careful to select the healthiest and strongest 
plants to remain. I must not be supposed ever to endorse the 
opinions of another man, simply because I give them ; but 
certainly success is the best test of judgment and skill. How- 
ever interesting and ingenious a man's speculations may be, his 
practice is always worth vastly more than his theory. 

His crops of mangel-wurzel were magnificent ; and he gets a 
great deal of green feed for his cows, by plucking the under 
leaves ; though, if too severely stripped in the autumn, they are 
liable to be injured by the frosts. 

He sows tares and oats together for green feed for his stock. 
The oats serve to support the tares, and the mixture seems to be 
greatly relished by the animals. His great dependence for green 
feeding of his stock is upon the Italian rye-grass, a most valuable 
grass, which is very much commended wherever it is cultivated, 
and which, I hope, will be introduced into the United States. I 
saw a field of this on the farm, which had already been cut twice 
in the season, and was nearly ready for another cropping. In 
Manchester, the last autumn, I saw specimens of three cuttings 
of Italian rye-grass, all cut from the same field in the same 
season, the combined length of which was thirteen feet. This 
was a surprising growth, and indicated the remarkable luxuriance 
of the plant. 

His oats give an average yield of eighty bushels to an English 
acre ; and the oats chiefly preferred here are the Scotch potato 
and the Hopetoun oat. The weight of the potato oat per 
bushel is stated to be about forty-four pounds. I have known it 
in the United States, the first year of its cultivation, to weigh as 
much, but the second year not to weigh more than thirty-five, 
pounds per bushel. This must be owing to some error or defect 
in the cultivation ; for I can conceive of no natural hinderance, in 
many localities, to the most successful cultivation of this crop. 
He sows rye-grass with his oat crop, and gets a good cutting, 
after the oats are ofl", from the stubble. It might be thouglit that 
this is riding the horse " too hard ; " but, as the rye-grass does 
not ripen its seed in the case, the soil is not exhausted. The 
next season it gives a full yield. I shall hereafter extend the 
account of this admirable establishment, if any thing presents 
16* 



186 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

itself, upon further inquiry, desirable to be communicated. The 
institution is one of great importance, and will serve as a model 
for others j and several, in different parts of the country, through 
the public-spirited exertions of several gentlemen, who are large 
landholders, are in the process of being formed. I shall conclude 
the account with the production, the current year, (1844,) of six- 
teen and a half acres of land upon this farm, which the manager, 
in whose established character 1 have entire confidence, has been 
pleased to give me. In my experience, the yield has not been 
siirpassed. 

From these sixteen and one half English acres, he has fed 
entirely, from the 4th of April to the 18th of August, seventeen 
milch cows, one bull, six young stock, two horses, and one pony. 
Of one acre in vetches, he has used one half the crop ; the rest 
remains. Of one acre in cabbages, he has sold two thirds, and 
used one third ; the two thirds having brought him by the sale 
£13 sterling; and from the same sixteen and a half acres he 
has cut and cured, and has in stack, twenty-eight tons of well- 
made hay, from rye-grass. I took this statement down from his 
own mouth, with the stack of hay before me, the quantity of 
which was ascertained by cubic measurement, by a rule which 
is considered established and accurate. 



XXIV. — DUBLIN BOTANICAL GARDEN. 

In the neighborhood of Dublin is a Botanical Garden, compre- 
hending twenty-seven acres, enclosed by a high stone wall, with 
a beautiful rivulet running through it, with ample and elegant 
conservatories and greenhouses, and in the highest state of cul- 
tivation and embellishment. It is supported partly by private 
subscription, and partly by donations from the government. It 
is a beautiful retreat, and open to all persons two days in a week, 
with intelligent and courteous superintendents to show and ex- 
plain every thing. To my inquiry of the superintendent 
whether he suffered any injury from the visitors plucking the 
flowers, or breaking the plants, he replied, very little, if any ; none 



DUBLIN BOTANICAL GARDEN. 187 

whatever from tlie highest classes ia society, and none whatever 
from the lowest classes, who visited it in great numbers ; and who, 
coming out of their damp cellars, and their confined streets, and 
their dark and offensive holes, and fastnesses, and common 
sewers, no doubt found in it, with their children, almost a transi- 
tion from earth to heaven ; and here breathed the perfumes of the 
divine beneficence, and contemplated, with a felicity which even 
princes might envy, the exuberant tokens of God's goodness in 
the flowers and fruits of the earth, radiant with a celestial beauty. 
There were other persons, whom he chose to denominate the 
vulgar rich, who were not so abstemious, and who required to 
be watched. It is to be hoped, as education advances, a higher 
tone of moral sentiment will prevail, and that every thing of taste 
or art, designed for general gratification, will be secure against 
injury or defacement, so that the odious notices and cautions, 
which are now so constantly seen in such places against depre- 
dation, may themselves be deemed a public insult, and the very 
idea of violating an honorable confidence, and abusing the public 
beneficence, may so trouble a man's conscience, that he shall 
desire to run away from himself. 

This garden and grounds, and its conservatories, are designed 
to furnish specimens of all the most valuable and curious native 
and exotic plants and fruits ; and, in addition to their present 
erections, the proprietory are now about to build a conservatory 
four hundred feet long, and seventy feet wide, with a height pro- 
portioned. The grounds are always open to the studious and 
scientific, and a course of botanical lectures is given, Avith the 
illustrations to be found here. 

Botany may here be studied to great advantage, as portions of 
the ground are allotted to the perfect arrangement of the plants, 
according to the classification and orders of Linnaeus, and in 
another part, according to the natural order ; and for the benefit 
of agricultural students and farmers, specimens are cultivated 
and neatly arranged of all the useful vegetables and grasses, 
with their botanical and their vulgar names affixed to them, with 
specimens likewise of the most pernicious weeds, that the farmer 
may see what to choose and what to avoid. The collection is 
already extensive, and is constantly becoming enlarged. It 
is difficult to overrate the value of such establishments, both for 
use and for pleasure, for their pecuniary, their intellectual, and 



188 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

their moral benefit. While penning this account, I hear, with 
extreme regret, that the Botanical Garden in Boston, a city so 
eminent for its public spirit and beneficence, is to be strangled in 
its infancy, and abandoned ; and that the ground is likely to be 
appropriated to buildings, so that the rich prospect of the charm- 
ing environs of the city is to be shut out, and the fresh and salu- 
brious breezes from the verdant fields and hills of the surrounding 
country are to be debarred an entrance for the refreshment of the 
inhabitants of this busy and crowded mart ; and even the sight 
of the glorious western sky, which, with its gilded, and glowing, 
and gorgeous drapery, I have made, at evening, a pilgrimage, many 
hundreds of times, to contemplate and adore, is to be excluded by 
high walls of brick and stone. Should this be done ? and how 
can such an injury, if once committed, be repaired ? Surely they 
will forgive one of their own children, whom no distance of place 
and no length of absence can estrange from his honored and 
revered birthplace, in saying that even one half of the expense 
thrown away upon public dinners and parade, would secure to 
them permanent provisions for health, instruction, comfort, and 
delight, whose value no pecuniary standard can measure, and 
which can never be duly appreciated, but by those who have 
enjoyed and have then been deprived of them. 




5^ V 



iil!l|il'«»nlP"*ii|M;vnil|!l|li:r 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



THIRD REPORT. 



XXV. — AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 

My Second Report gave an account of the Agricultural 
School at Glasnevin, near Dublin, Ireland. I propose to add a 
notice of some other industrial schools, which I have had an 
opportunity of inspecting. The excellent establishment which 
I described, and three others, of a similar character, which I 
have visited, are in Ireland. Ireland, in this respect, has taken 
the lead of England and Scotland, where we might sooner have 
expected to find institutions of this nature. 

That in a country where the waves of political agitation have 
for years been tossing all over it like the sea in a storm, and 
where, certainly in large portions of it, there exist a degradation 
and state of destitution utterly beyond any power which I possess 
adequately to describe, — in many parts, a struggle for existence 
which seems, to an inexperienced spectator, absolutely desperate, 
— and, in some parts, a ferocity, growing not out of any innate 
malignity, but out of unfortunate social relations, (for which the 
remedy is not obvious,) scarcely to be paralleled even among 
cannibals, — in a condition of society where all the elements of 
social life appear in a state of violent conflict, — that in the 
midst of all this there should be growing up institutions of this 
character, even in advance of places blessed with peace, plenty, 
quiet, and the highest measure of social improvement which 
has yet been reached, is not a little remarkable. 



190 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

But this beautiful and wretched country abounds with intelli- 
gent minds, glowing with the warmest philanthropy. They 
appear, indeed, like stars in a partially-clouded night, pouring, 
out of their own native fulness, rays of the purest splendor; 
struggling, as it were, continually, to penetrate the darkness 
which intercepts them ; and appearing to shed a brighter radiance 
as the mists and black clouds sweep along, and, occasionally 
breaking open, leave, though only for a time, a way for the 
transmission of their light. They may, sometimes, seem to 
serve no other purpose than to render the darkness visible ; but 
they inspire courage, and strengthen the hope of a wider diifu- 
sion, and the ultimate dawning of a full day. 

These men rightly conceive that education is to be one of 
the great means of elevating Ireland ; and that, an education of 
a practical character. In an education of a different character, 
Ireland is not wanting. Strange as it may seem, in some parts 
of Ireland, even the common people are familiar with the an- 
cient classics ; and the household deities of the heathen are en- 
shrined in their cabins among their own numberless saints. 
When in Killarney, in the vicinity of the lakes of that pic- 
turesque and romantic region, I took leave to inquire of the hotel- 
keeper into the state of education among the people. He im- 
mediately called in a ragged, dirty, barefooted boy, — for, indeed, 
very few of the common people in the rural districts of Ireland 
are in any other condition, — and told him " to bring his books 
and show the gentleman what he knew." This boy was only 
ten years old, and the son of a shoemaker. He brought in his 
Greek Testament, and in the Gospel of John, in which I pretty 
thoroughly examined him, he recited with perfect correctness. 
I then examined him in the declensions and conjugations of 
nouns, and adjectives, and verbs, in which he was equally expert 
and correct. I found, likewise, upon inquiry, that this was the 
general course of education at the school which he attended. 
The next day, a lad passed me, evidently on his way to school, 
with his books under his arm. I inquired his age, which he 
said was fifteen years, and then desired him to allow me to see 
a book which he had with him, which was Homer in Greek ; 
and he was studying the second book. To my inquiry if there 
were many in his class, he replied, yes ; and to my question 
whether he was destined for tlie priesthood, his answer was 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 191 

in the negative. I learned that classical learning was by no 
means uncommon in Ireland, and among some even of the 
poorest of the people. Schools, likewise, of a more humble 
character, abound in Ireland, and benevolent efforts are making 
to extend and improve them. 

It would be wrong, however, to infer, from what I have stated 
above, that education in Ireland is every where of a high char- 
acter, or that it is universal. I might do wrong to say even that 
it is general, though it is certainly much more general than is 
usually supposed. Many parts of Ireland are wrapped in thick 
darkness, with its usual concomitant, the grossest superstition. 
Indeed, without impugning the prevalent religion of Ireland, a 
fair proportion of the ministers of which are indefatigable in 
their pastoral labors, and disinterestedly devoted to the welfare 
of their flocks, it will not be denied that it discourages the 
general or extended education of the people. I speak of what 
strikes me as facts in the case, and neither attribute nor insin- 
uate any unworthy motives. Nor would England, as far as my 
unpressions go, gain much by a comparison with Ireland in this 
respect. In England the higher classes are not without strong, 
and it may be conscientious prejudices against the education of 
the lower and laboring classes. The course of education, at the 
national schools in England which I have visited, — and they are 
not a few, — is certainly of a meagre and limited description, 
embracing no more than reading, spelling, writing, and the 
study of the Bible, the catechism and the creeds, with the com- 
mittal of hymns to memory. To my inquiry of a noble and 
enlightened woman, the benevolent patroness and supporter of 
a large school, and to whom, how much soever I might differ 
from her in opinion, it would be impossible to ascribe any want 
of kind regard for her dependants and beneficiaries, whether it 
would not be useful to teach these children some geography, 
and induce them to read some books of general knowledge, her 
reply was, that "she wanted none of the ologies, neither geol- 
ogy, mineralogy, nor chronology, taught in her school ; and that, 
in her opinion, it was quite enough of general knowledge for the 
children to know their prayers and the catechism ; and of geog- 
raphy, for them to be able to find their way from their house to 
their work, to the school, and to the church." If I had not met 
with repeated instances of the same avowed sentiments, and of 



192 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

a practice conformed to them, I should hesitate in making any 
general inferences. As it is, however, having stated the case, I 
prefer to leave it to my readers to form their own conclusions. 

I could not help replying to this noble lady, that one of the 
ologies seemed to be pretty assiduously taught in the school, and 
that was theology ; for the catechism and creeds were inculcated 
with peremptory authority, and the Bible was the only reading 
book in the school. She admitted this, but an exception of this 
nature needed no apology. I could not help thinking that the 
course might have been enlarged, and other branches of instruction 
have been introduced to advantage ; that some good for religion 
itself might be gathered even from the simplest discoveries of 
geology, and the wonders, and uses, and splendors of the min- 
eral world ; that the great and settled truths of physiology, those 
which are directly practical in their character, might be of 
service both to the health of the body and the mind, and conse- 
quently to the moral health ; that a general knowledge of 
anatomy, both human and comparative, could scarcely be with- 
out its use ; and that it might be as serviceable, as it would be 
interesting, if children were taught to understand some of the 
marvels of their own structure, and led to see how this curious 
frame of their bodies is knit together and compacted by an all- 
powerful Architect ; and the still more wonderful capacities and 
faculties of their own minds, where " the inspiration of the 
Almighty has given them understanding," — and thus be led to 
reverence the Divinity, who has made their own souls the 
temples of his indwelling spirit. I could not think that it 
would be straying far from the best objects of education, if 
these children were early accustomed to see every object and 
operation in nature instinct with lessons of heavenly wisdom. 
I cannot think that any thing would be lost. Are we not bound 
to believe that much would be gained by every advance in 
knowledge of this kind; if children were taught daily to 
consider the flowers of the field, how they grow ; what causes 
the earth to yield its food for man and beast, and makes the dry 
seed spring up into a beautiful and fruitful plant, arrayed in a 
splendor surpassing that of Oriental luxury ; and who takes care 
of the birds of the air, who, though they have neither store- 
house nor barn, find their daily and hourly wants supplied by 
an invisible hand and a paternal and an inexhaustible bounty ? 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 193 

Indeed, I have yet to learn that the acquisition of knowledge 
can ever be otherwise than favorable to virtue ; or that what- 
ever tends to enlarge and improve the mind does not, in an 
equal degree, tend to render character more valuable, moral 
obligations more autiioritative, and inspire and strengthen that 
self-respect which is among the most powerful instruments and 
securities of virtue. 

If I should be asked, now, What has all this to do with agri- 
culture ? I answer, Much every way. It will be found, with 
respect to agriculture. — what is true in reference to every other 
art, — that its proper exercise, and all the improvements which it 
has received, have been the effects of the application of mind to 
the subject ; in other Avords, of inquiry, observation, knowledge, 
and especially the results of intelligent experience. Who does 
not know the difference between a stupid and an intelligent 
laborer ; between a man scarcely raised above the brute animal 
which he drives, and a man whose faculties are all awake, and 
who is constantly upon the alert to discover and adopt the best 
mode of executing the task which he has undertaken ; between 
a beast altogether the creature of instinct, or a mere machine, 
moving only as it is impelled, and unable to correct its own 
errors, and a thinking, knowing, reasoning animal, always search- 
ing for the right way, making all his actions subservient to his 
judgment, and gathering continual accessions of power and 
facility of action from his own and the experience of others ? 
Every one will admit that the more intelligence, the more skill, 
the more knowledge, a man has, the better is he qualified, other 
things being equal, for the management of a farm. It holds 
equally true that the more intelligence, the more skill, the more 
knowledge, a laborer has, the better is he qualified to assist in 
that management, and to perform the part which belongs to him 
in the working of the whole machinery. 

I believe I may safely say, that a New England laborer ac- 
complishes in the same time much more than an English 
laborer ; and this circumstance, in respect to agriculture, and 
especially in some of the manufacturing and mechanic arts, 
which more demand the exercise of the mind than the ordi- 
nary operations of husbandry, is one among other circumstances 
which enable us to come in successful competition with the 
labor of Europe, so very inferior in its cost. I cannot say they 
17 



194 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

always execute their work as well. Certainly, in ploughing and 
draining, our operations are altogether inferior to what is done in 
England, where, in the perfection with which these matters are 
executed, nothing more seems to me either attainable or desira- 
ble. But this arises from several causes ; — the more we have to 
do compared with the number of hands we have to accomplish 
it ; the extent to which a system of division of labor is carried 
in England, so that particular individuals are accustomed to do 
only particular things, and consequently acquire a precision and 
facility of operation, which such exact attention and long-con- 
titiued practice are sure to give, attended with an almost utter 
distjualification for any other branches of labor. In many de- 
partments and operations of husbandry, this exactness is not 
necessary, though in many I am ready to admit its utility ; but 
in the amount of work which an American laborer will accom- 
plish in a given time, and in the facility with which he turns 
from one species of labor to another, he is far before an English 
laborer. This, I believe, is, in a great degree, owing to the dif- 
ference in their minds; the one being educated, the other uned- 
ucated ; the one being accustomed to depend upon himself, to 
inquire, to reflect, to observe, to experiment ; the other scarcely 
exercising his mind at all more than the cattle which he drives, 
and accustomed to move in the line, and that only, which has 
been marked out for him. I hold that education, in every con- 
dition of life, is a great good. It sometimes gives facilities for 
particular crimes, of which, otherwise, men would have been 
incapable ; but the viciousness of these men would have shown 
itself in some other form. It is in no sense attributable to their 
education. I believe, as much as I live, that every advance in 
the cultivation and improvement of the mind is an incentive 
and an auxiliary to good conduct ; and although an education 
purely intellectual falls far short of the beneficial influences 
which it might yield, when the moral sentiments are cultivated 
conjointly with the intellectual, yet am I perfectly assured, that 
every quickening or cultivation of the mental faculties, every 
thing which contributes, in any measure or degree, to raise man 
above a mere machine, or a mere animal, is so far positive good — 
positive good for his efficiency as a laborer, and for his happiness 
and moral well-being as a man. I am afraid I shall be thought 
to dwell too long on this subject ; but I have felt such a burning 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATIONl 195 

indignation when I have heard the cause of popular education 
spoken of disparagingly, by those who were reaping its richest 
fruits ; I have felt such a deep compassion for the very degraded 
condition, in this respect, of a large portion of the laboring pop- 
ulation of England ; I have seen with so much pain, on the part 
of some of those whose laps were overflowing with these rich- 
est blessings of Heaven, so strong a reluctance to communicate 
of their abundance to these benighted children of ignorance and 
want, in many cases, undoubtedly, springing from an honest dis- 
trust of their utility, — and, at the same time, I have felt my own 
heart swelling almost to bursting, with gratitude, for the privi- 
leges in this respect enjoyed by a large portion of my own 
countrymen, and the blessed fruits of which are every where 
seen among them in such rich abundance, — that I cannot refrain 
from speaking out ; and too happy should I be if my feeble 
voice could do any thing towards commanding that attention 
to the subject which its importance demands.* 

* That I do not express myself too strongly on this subject, may appear from 
the following remarks of a distinguished professor of agriculture, who is much 
employed in lecturing to the farmers about the country. They were made 
recently at a large agricultural meeting. 

" I put no stress on the spread of knowledge, whether here, in Scotland, in Ire- 
land, or elsewhere. I attach no importance to intellectual improvement amongst 
the agriculturists. I do not value that instruction which you saw those boys had 
received to-day, unless that knowledge furnishes you with the means of putting- 
more money into your pockets." 

And, indeed, is this all the value which this learned gentleman can see in edu- 
cation ? One cannot help feeling that it is greatly to be regretted that he him- 
self should have been put to so much trouble to acquire his own education, for an 
object in which it is not vmlikely, with all his success, many a thimble-rigger, or 
dog-meat-seller, would beat him. 

At the great meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, in Dublin, 
the last year, a peer of the realm, of high rank, and who (so much better often- 
times are men than the principles which they profess) is esteemed withal a very 
just and kind landlord, was pleased, after strongly proclaiming his interest in the 
improvement of the condition of the peasantry and the laboring classes, " to beg 
of his hearers not to misunderstand him, nor to subject him to the imputation of a 
desire to raise these people out of their proper condition — the condition which 
Providence had assigned them." 

One would be glad to know, under such an interpretation of the designs of 
Providence, how any man should ever attempt tlie improvement of any body, or 
any thing ; and whetlier he himself could by any compulsory process be induced 
to exchange his marquisate for a dukedom. 

With great personal respect for both these gentlemen, wliose publicly-expressed 



196 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



1. GLASNEVIN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 

I promised in my former Report to give some further account 
of the school at Glasnevin ; and since that time the intelligent 
and obliging superintendent has been kind enough to furnish 
me with a copy of his farm accounts for two years, which I 
think must be interesting to my readers. It is obviously a great 
tj^uestion whether an institution of this character can be made to 
support itself; and this question is affirmatively and emphat- 
ically answered by the' result in this case. It is obviously 
highly desirable that education should be made as cheap as 
possible. I very well understand what often comes of making 
things cheap ; that when the price is reduced, the quality of the 
article is made to correspond. A milkman in New York once 
told me that he always accommodated his customers as to the 
price ; six and a quarter cents was the standard price for sound 
and pure milk ; but if his customers wished to have it at five or 
four cents, he took care always to put enough water with it to 
bring it to the standard price. This honest fellow, who was a 
shrewd Irishman, by the way, (an evidence that all the wooden 
nutmegs arc not made in New England,) was pleased also to tell 
me that, by straining water through some finely-ground Indian 
meal or flour, so as to color it, and adding to it a mere dash of 
skimmed milk, he was able then to aff'ord it at three cents a 
quart to those who could not give a higher price. Most 
certainly I cannot recommend, in this sense of the word, a cheap 
education : but if the advantages of a good, solid, and enlarged 
education can bo made universally acceptable ; if they can be 
purchased by that whicli most young persons have, and besides 
which many young men have nothing else which they can give. 



iipinions are certainly just objects of animadversion, I can only express the wish, 
that they both might be transported, at least for a while, to a land of free institu- 
tions, where education is universal, — and learn there, that education, from its 
high moral influences, may have otlier uses than tliat of putting money into men's 
pockets ; and that, wliere the road of advancement and promotion is freely and 
equally open to all, even the humblest in the community may ascend to a noble- 
ness of merit, and ciiaracter, and intellectual elevation, before which tlie tinsel 
splendor of coronets, and mitres, and maces, becomes dim, and they are seen in 
their proper character, as mere baubles for grown-up children. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 197 

— their own personal labor, — a great point will be gained ; and 
the price itself will be an eflicient instrument of their improvement. 
I believe this can be done ; that is, upon an adequate extent of 
land favorably situated, by an amount of labor which shall not 
interfere with their intellectual improvement, but, by conducing 
to their health, and by demonstrating the practical application 
of the principles and lessons which they are taught, will most 
efficiently further this improvement, the pupils themselves may 
be comfortably sustained, and their instruction paid for. The 
school at Glasnevin certainly has gone far towards establishing 
this point. If this is too much to be expected, and the fees for 
instruction are to be paid in money, yet it will be a great 
object gained, if the labor of the pupils provides for their sub- 
sistence, and pays a fair rent for the land. 

I subjoin the following extracts from the letters addressed to 
me by the intelligent manager of the establishment, Mr. Thomas 
Skilling. 

" I send you copies of my profit and loss account on the 
transactions of the farm during the last two years, ending the 
31st March, 1844. The annual accounts and amount for the 
previous three years, from 1839, are somewhat similar, with this 
difference, that, notwithstanding the yearly reduction in the price 
of farm produce during the said time, there have been increased 
profits, from the increased products of the land, of course from 
high cultivation and fertility. The profits of last year would 
have been very considerable indeed, had I not suffered so much 
by the fatal disease among my cattle. This year I expect to 
realize a handsome sum, and you will recollect that these profits 
are exclusive of the keep of my house and family in all kinds of 
farm produce." 

" From what you will have seen and heard here, you will 
perceive that my system aims to show what land is capable of 
producing, when properly cultivated and managed ; the great- 
est quantity of produce from the same quantity and quality of 
land ; and the greatest amount of profitable human labor, as 
opposed to horse labor and expensive machinery. This T be- 
lieve to be the system suitable for this, or perhaps any part of 
the United Kingdom, where we have a numerous population 

within small bounds, and even this small space of land not one 
17 # 



198 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

third cultivated, nor one half of our people employed as they 
ought to be. The great evil of this country is Qiionopoly, and 
the most pernicious and extensive is the land monopoly. The 
masses here have no right, property, or interest, in the soil which 
they inhabit. They are the most wretched of slaves. What 
we want is a middle class of small landed proprietors — virtuous, 
educated, and industrious. These would be Britain's strength ; 
they are at present her weakness. I want the masses that are 
idle and starving, or driven into those sinks of vice, the large 
and crowded towns, spread over the face of the country, holding 
and cultivating their small farms, leading a comfortable, virtuous, 
and independent life. But our landlords say, ' The people are 
poor ; they have no capital ; they are ignorant ; they do not 
know how to cultivate and manage our land. We will not give 
it to them. We Avill keep it for grazing bullocks and sheep. 
They must look elsewhere for employment and sustenance.' 
It would be useless here to inquire, who makes these people 
poor and ignorant. We find the people as represented. This 
state of things we wish to remove, and take away all excuses on 
that head. We desire to educate them, and render them com- 
petent to manage the land." 

'* Account of the Agricultural Establishment at 
Glasnevin, Ireland. 

Dr. . . . Profit and Loss. 

1843. £. s. d. 

March 31. To cows lost, 47 14 9 

" seeds, 279 

" smith's work, 4 9 

" servants' meat and wages, .... 44 

" laborers' wages, 2 19 10^ 

" coals for the year, 9 3 

" turnpike " " 1 7 10 

" general charges, 22 3 11 

" year's rent, 257 7 8 

" profits for the year, 120 16 8^ 

£512 10 6 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 199 

Contra . . Cr. 

1843. £. s. d. 

March 31. By bulls raised, 15 

" heifers " 4 

" pigs, 30 7 3 

" oats, 66 18 7 

" potatoes, 89 16 9J 

" vegetables, 33 1 4 

" milk, 199 6 5^: 

" butter, 54 12 7^ 

" implements sold not required, . . 19 7 5 

£512 10 6" 

" It will be perceived that there is a loss on cows in this year. 
This always happens, more or less. A large quantity of milk is 
required for the training establishment,* and when a cow goes 
nearly dry, she must be sold, and another in milk bought in her 
place, at a higher price than that at which the former is sold. 
We have it in contemplation to take another farm, of larger di- 
mensions, in addition to the present one, and of an inferior, and 
different quality of land, in order to show a specimen of the 
improvement and management of that kind of soil ; and in this 
case the loss on cattle will be obviated, as the second will be 
more adapted to the raising of young stock and sheep." 

" Dr. . . Profit and Loss. 

1844. £. s. d. 

March 31. To cows lost, 114 10 

" horses " 6 2 

" general charges, 23 8 7^ 

" turnpike, 2 7 4^ 

" implements, 6 13 3 

" carpenter's work, 8 

" smith's work, 3 4 

Amount carried over, , . £156 4 1 

* This is the establishment of the Model School, where young men are trained as 
schoolmasters at the expense of the government. This place is supplied with 
milk and other things from the farm, by purchase. 



200 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



'•Dr. . . Profit and Loss, . . (continued.) 

1844. £. s. d. 

March 31. Amount brought over, . . 15G 4 1 

To servants' meat and wages, ... 31 1 6 

'•' laborers' wages, 5 19 11 J 

" coals for farm use, 2 10 

" rent for the year, 257 7 8 

" profits " " 49 4 7 

£502 7 9 J 

Contra . . Cr. 

1844. £. s. d. 

March 31. By bulls raised, 8 3 8 

" heifers " 6 8 8 

" potatoes, 89 16 32 

" milk, 183 10 111 

" butter, 32 5 2^ 

" pigs, 40 11 10 

" seeds, 16 4 6 

" vegetables, 90 8 10* 

'' grain, 34 17 9 

£502 7 9* 



" The great loss on cattle, this season, principally arose in con- 
sequence of a fatal epidemic, which has prevailed in this neigh- 
borhood during the last two years, and carried off a number of 
mine." 

" Besides the real cash profits every year, there is a very 
important advantage gained from the farm, and which has not 
been taken into account : I mean, the keep of the family and 
servants in farm produce, — nine individuals, besides occasional 
visitors during the year, — in milk, butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, 
pork, bacon, potatoes, vegetables, &c. &c. This, at a fair 
computation, may be reckoned at from £80 to £90 more." 

" An addition is now being made to the buildings, to accom- 
modate a superior class of twelve pupils, who will pay a mod- 
erate annual sum for their board, lodging, and education." 

" You will understand that our farm was most injudiciously 
taken at an enormous rack-rent, double the sum that is paid for 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 201 

much better land in our immediate neighborhood ; and when I 
agreed with the Board to manage it on my own account, and 
pay all rents, taxes, and other expenses, they agreed to supply me 
with a certain amount of labor ; viz., at the rate of five men in the 
year ; i. e. one ploughman and twelve pupils — the estimated work 
of twelve boys being equal to four men, or one man to three 
boys. This I find very near the mark. I would, however, 
prefer four steady, constant men, to the boys. The boys are 
difficult to manage ; very ignorant at first, and neglectful ; and, 
besides, they work only a part of the day, from ten until two 
o'clock, and from three until six in snmmer, and four in winter. 
This labor, at the present rates, would be equal to about £96, 
which, deducted from the profits of the year, leaves a remainder 
of about £24 ; add to which the keep of my family and ser- 
vants in farm produce, which, at a low estimate, amounts to 
£50, with the former makes in all £74 per annum of clear 
profit, after paying labor and all." 

" The accounts of servants' wages and labor which you see, 
have nothing to do with the pupils. That 1 pay extra, for ser- 
vants, cowman, and laborers, occasionally employed in harvest." 

''My salary from the Board is merely for scientific and prac- 
tical instruction rendered to the National School masters and 
pupils, who are brought up in classes twice a year, (we have one 
hundred of them here at present. ) The profits of the farm are 
considered an equivalent for its superintendence. This is as 
much as any farmer gets." 

" I am happy to say that, since you were here, the commis- 
sioners have made a new arrangement with me, and a liberal 
one. They have raised my salary to two hundred pounds per 
year. They pay me for the loss I sustained in my cattle from 
the epidemic, the last and the present year. They agree to 
build and make accommodation for a superior class of pay pupils, 
and give me the benefit of that. They will also encourage me 
to increase the farm by degrees, according as manure, stock, and 
capital increase, and some other advantages, which I did not 
before possess." 

" I am paid eight shillings per week, for the board and wash- 
ing of the pupils, and this is very near what it costs me. If 
there is a small profit, it arises from my having tlie farm produce 
within my power, not having to purchase. They are in general 



202 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

excellent feeders. They are at that thne of life, from seventeen 
to twenty years, when they require most food ; and at an 
employment of all others most likely to create an appetite." 

" The dietary is as follows : Every morning, except Sunday, 
each boy gets one pound of the best bread, and a pint of new 
milk, cold or hot according to choice ; and on Sunday morning 
they get coffee or tea, with bread and butter. For dinner, four 
days in the week, viz., Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Sat- 
urday, they get meat ; two days beef, and two days pork or 
bacon, three fourths of a pound, each, of good meat, not bone, 
with soup, and vegetables, and potatoes unlimited. Two days, 
viz., Mondays and Wednesdays, for dinner, one quarter pound 
of butter, with plenty of buttermilk and potatoes, and sometimes 
other vegetables, such as cabbages, &.c. One day, Friday, they 
get fish, with melted butter and potatoes unlimited. For supper, 
every day, oatmeal stirabout, well made, thick, and of the best 
meal, with a pint of new milk each ; sometimes they choose 
potatoes for supper, instead of stirabout. By this you will 
perceive that they are good feeders. I have always been 
an advocate for good feeding and good working. The one 
promotes the other. It will perhaps be in your recollection 
that the boys, during your visit, were the very picture of a 
sufficient dietary. I had almost forgotten to mention that, on 
stated occasions, such as Ea,ster, Christmas, Halloween, harvest- 
home, &c. &c., we give them an extra blow-out ; roast beef, 
plum pudding, &c. &c., with porter and punch for those who 
are not tee-totallers. The school was formerly under a different 
regimen ; and the doctrine then maintained was, ' Feed them 
too well here, and they will be discontented with inferior food 
when they get home.' My answer was this: 'Give them a 
taste for good feeding while here. Treat them as human beings, 
and as respectable members of society, and they will not relapse 
into their former wretched condition, but will work and exert 
themselves to obtain the comforts of life." 

I have laid these details before my readers under the persua- 
sion that they will be deemed both interesting and useful. It 
is not to be inferred, in any case, because I quote the opinions 
of another man, that therefore I make them my own. I do not 
know that it is necessary here, in giving this account, to add a 
dissertation upon the value of total abstinence ; though what my 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 203 

friend here terms a " blow-out," at harvest-home, &c., must be a 
very gentle explosion, a mere flash in the pan, if we may infer 
any thing from what he calls, in the other case, a system of high 
feeding. I wonder what a Vermonter or a Connecticut River 
boy would think, to be cautioned against excess and indulgence 
over buttermilk and potatoes for dinner, and oatmeal stirabout, 
or hasty pudding, for supper ; and whether he would not be a 
little surprised to hear a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding 
spoken of only as a feast for state occasions, which he feels that 
he can command every week at his pleasure. I give it, however, 
as a picture of manners, which, while it conveys a useful lesson 
in the wholesome example of sobriety which it exhibits, may at 
the same time impart not an unseasonable admonition of an 
extravagance with which many of us are justly chargeable, and 
of which, accompanied as it too often is even by ungrateful 
complaints, we have good reason to be ashamed. I am neither 
an advocate for high nor for low feeding, but for that which is 
plain and sufficient. It is certainly a fault with some of our 
laboring people, that they expend, in the indulgences of the 
table, too much of their hard earnings ; and it might silence some 
of the repinings which are occasionally heard, even in the midst 
of comparative plenty, if they could see, as I have seen, the 
habitations of thousands and tens of thousands, where the sole 
and whole diet, for men, women, and children, three hundred 
and sixty-four days out of the three hundred and sixty-five, is 
potatoes and water, and by no means always enough of that. 

2. TEMPLEMOYLE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 

The next agricultural school which I visited was that of 
Templemoyle, in the north of Ireland, and not very far from 
Londonderry. In point of situation, it is not easy to find a 
place more picturesque and beautiful. The soil, however, is of 
a hard and rather unfertile character, but not the less favorable 
for agricultural experiments. The farm consists of one hundred 
and seventy-two acres, and atfords opportunities for experiments 
in draining, in the effects of various manures, and the common 
operations of ploughing and cultivation, and especially in the 
adaptation of the crops, and the mode of culture, to the climate, 
soil, and situation. 



204 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The farm is under two different rotations of crops ; one part 
being under the five-course rotation, the other under what is 
deemed the four-shift. The five-course system of cropping is, 

First year ; oats after pasture : 

Second " turnips, potatoes, vetches, beans, or flax with 

manure : 
Third " wheat, barley, or oats, sown with clover and 

grasses : 
Fourth " clover for soiling, or hay : 
Fifth " pasture. 

The four-crop rotation is the same, with the exception of the 
fifth year in pasture. 

The department for in-door instruction consists of a head and 
an assistant teacher ; and the course of instruction embraces 
spelling, reading, grammar, writing, arithmetic, geography, 
book-keeping, as applicable both to commercial and agricultural 
accounts, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, with its application 
to heights and distances, imd land-surveying, together with the 
use of the water-level, the theodolite, and chain. 

The agricultural department is intrusted to an experienced 
and skilful farmer, a native of Scotland, who has under him an 
assistant, a gardener, and ploughman. 

Of the pupils, the one half are at their studies in the house, 
while the others are pursuing their agricultural instruction out 
of doors. This is the arrangement for the morning. In the 
afternoon, the arrangements are such that those in school in the 
morning are at work in the field in their turn. 

The garden and nursery are objects of study and practice, and 
the lessons received in the house, in surveying and mapping, are 
applied in the field. Oral instruction and lectures are given in 
their proper place and time. 

The buildings afford the necessary accommodations of school- 
rooms, dining-hall, and sleeping apartments, and they furnish 
accommodations for seventy-six pupils. So far as I observed, 
there was no provision whatever for luxury or indulgence, and 
the fittings up were of the plainest description. One of the 
regulations of the school requires the pupils to wash their hands 
and faces before business in the mornina:, on returning from 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 205 

labor, and after dinner. I had my doubts whether some of the 
pupils, whom I saw. did it much oftener than this. 

On Sundays, tlie pupils are required to attend their respective 
places of worship, accompanied by their instructors or mon- 
itors ; and it is earnestly recommended to them to employ the 
remainder of the day in reading the AVord of God, and such 
other devotional exercises as their respective ministers may 
point out. 

This is a very commendable liberality, and rather remarkable 
in a country, — I speak of England as well as Ireland, — where 
the first principles of religious liberty are not universally under- 
stood, and where men of all parties seem quite as tenacious of 
their religious differences as of their moral duties. While no 
reasonable effort should be spared, in places of education, to 
instil and maintain in the youthful mind a profound and habitual 
sense of religious duty, nothing can be more unwarrantable than 
to take advantage of the influence which such places afford, to 
enforce the principles or peculiar practices of a sect or party. 

It may be interesting to learn the general regulations of the 
school, which the intelligent principal was kind enough to give 
me in a printed form. 

1. As the great object is to make the boys practical farmers, 
one half of them will be at all times on the fann, where they 
will be employed in manual labor, and receive from the head 
farmer such instructions, reasons, and explanations, as will 
render the mode of proceeding, in all the various operations 
performed on the farm, sufficiently intelligible to them. Every 
pupil is to be made a ploughman, and taught, not only how to 
use, but how to settle the plough-irons for every soil and work, 
and to be instructed and made acquainted with the purpose and 
practical management of every other implement generally used. 
And all are to be kept closely to their work, either by the head 
farmer or his assistant, or, in their unavoidable absence, by the 
monitor placed in charge of them. 

2. Their attention is to be drawn to stock of all kinds, and to 
the particular points which denote them to be good, bad, indif- 
ferent, hardy, delicate, good feeders, good milkers, &c. 

3. At the proper season of the year, the attention of the boys 
is to be directed to the making and repairing of fences, that they 

18 



206 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

may know both how to make a new one, and, what is of great 
advantage, how to repair and make permanent those of many- 
years' standing.* 

4. The head farmer will deliver evening lectures to the pupils 
on the theory and practice of agriculture, explaining his reasons 
for adopting any crop, or any particular rotation of crops, as well 
as the most suitable soil and the most approved modes of cultiva- 
ting for each ; the proper management and treatment of working, 
feeding, and dairy stock ; the most approved breeds, and their 
adaptation to different soils. He will point out the best method 
of reclaiming, draining, and improving land ; and will direct 
attention to the most recent inventions in agricultural imple- 
ments, detailing the respective merits of each. 

5. After the boys have been taught to look at stock on a farm 
with a farmer's eye, the committee propose that they should in 
rotation attend the head farmer to fairs and markets, in order to 
learn how to buy and sell stock. At the same time> the com- 
mittee expect the head farmer will make his visits to fairs as 
few as possible, as his attention to the pupils of the establish- 
ment is always required, and he should therefore be as seldom as 
possible absent from Templemoyle. 

An annual examination of the school is held before the com- 
mittee and subscribers, and conducted by examiners totally 
independent of the school. The examination is attended by the 
leading gentlemen in the neighborhood, and many of these take 
a part in the examination, by either asking or suggesting ques- 
tions — a practice which is deserving of recommendation, as 
adapted to give additional value and dignity to the exam- 
ination. 

Such are some of the principal regulations of the school, 
which I have copied, that its management might be fully 
understood. 

Pupils, in order to be admitted, must be nominated by an 
annual subscriber, paying two pounds for the first pupil, and one 



* This, of course, applies principally to live fences, or hedges. It could at 
present have little pertinency to the United States, where certainly tliere is very 
little mystery in making the fences, and as little labor expended in keeping them 
in repair. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 207 

for each additional pupil. The school was established under 
the auspices of a society in 1827, and the whole number 
educated, since its foundation, is four hundred and ninety- 
seven. 

The terms for boarding, lodging, tuition, and washing, are 
ten pounds, or fifty dollars, a year, payable quarterly, in advance. 
It may be interesting to see the dietary of the school, which I 
subjoin : — 

Breakfast. Eleven ounces of oatmeal, made into stirabout , 
one pint of sweet milk. 

Dinner. Sundaj/. Three quarters of a pound of beef stewed 
with pepper and onions, or one half pound corned beef, with 
cabbage, and three and one half pounds potatoes. 

Monday. One half pomid pickled beef, three and one half 
pounds potatoes, and one pint of buttermilk. 

Tuesday. Broth made of one half pound of beef, with 
leeks, cabbage, and parsley, and three and a half pounds of 
potatoes. 

Wednesday. Two ounces of butter, eight ounces of oatmeal 
made into bread, three and a half pounds of potatoes, and one 
piut of sweet milk. 

Thursday. Half a pound of pickled beef, with cabbage or 
turnips, and three and a half pounds of potatoes. 

Friday. Two ounces of butter, eight ounces of wheatmeal 
made into bread, and one pint of sweet milk or fresh buttermilk ; 
three and a half pounds of potatoes. 

Saturday. Two ounces of butter, one pound of potatoes 
mashed, eight ounces of wheatmeal made into bread, two and a 
half pounds of potatoes, one pint of buttermilk. 

Supper. In summer, flummery made of one pound of oatmeal, 
and one pint of sweet milk. In winter, three and a half pounds 
of potatoes, and one pint of buttermilk or sweet milk. 

In lodging, the same system is strictly followed : the beds, 
bed-clothing, and all other necessary articles, being simple, 
though clean, and therefore within the reach of any industrious 
peasant. A proper degree of exercise is provided for by the 
distribution of hours into field and home occupation, so that 
each pupil is, in fine weather, half tlie day in the open air, as 
explained by the following table : — 



208 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

''Work and School Table, from the 20th March to the 23d 

September. 

Boys divided into two equal divisionSj A and B. 

Hours. M Work. At School. 

5i. All rise. 

6— S A, B. 

S— 9. Breakfast. 

9—1 A, B. 

1 — 2. Dinner and play. 

2—6 B, A. 

6—7. Play. 

7 — 9. Prepare lessons for next day, 
9. To bed. 

'* On Tuesday, B commences with work in the morning, and 
A with school, and so on, shifting upon alternate days." 

The establishment was purchased for a term of years, and the 
buildings erected by private subscription, of one hundred and 
thirty-two shares, at £25 each, and by the liberal donations of 
several useful societies and associations. The yearly expen- 
diture is nearly met by the pay of the pupils, and the produce of 
the farm, beyond what goes to the support of the pupils. The 
annual rent paid for the farm is put down at £80, which would 
be less than ten shillings per acre for the land, and, as in the 
case of the school at Glasnevin, no charge is made for interest 
on the stock invested. 

The copy of the accounts of the establishment, for 1841 to 
1842, was given me by the superintendent, — some items from 
which will, I think, alford gratification to my readers. 

House, &c. 
Salaries and Servants^ Wa^es. 



£. s. d. 

Head master,. . . 50 

Second master, . . 20 12 

Head farmer, . . . 81 16 



£. s. d. 

Matron, .... 20 

Gardener, .... 17 

Servants, .... 17 5 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION'. 209 



Provisions. 



Groceries, ... 17 10 

Beef, 122 4 lU 

Candles and soap; 16 10 Hi 

Potatoes, ... 46 4 6 



£. s. d. £. s. d. 

Fish, 5 17 11 

Salt, 17 6^ 

Wine and beer for 

examination, ..476 



The reason for the salarj'' of the farmer being so much larger 
than that of the masters, is because, I presume, he provides for 
himself, whereas they live with the pupils. The charge for 
groceries is remarkable for its small amount. With us, the ex- 
pense of tea, coffee, sugar, &c., is considerable, even in the hum- 
blest families. I begrudge no man any of the comforts of life ; 
but it is obvious that these must be classed among luxuries, 
contributing nothing to our strength and subsistence. In this 
case, it seems well worthy of reflection, how much is to be 
gained by a rigid economy, and how wise is the example of self- 
denial, when, by cutting off the superfluities of mere personal 
indulgence, we secure the endiu-ing and inestimable treasures of 
the mind. 

The farm and garden seemed very well managed, and in good 
order. Various experiments were being made, in the vicinity of 
each other, upon difi'erent manures ; but the results are not yet so 
fully obtained as to afford grounds for confident practice. The 
nitrates of soda and of potash upon grass, at the rate of about 
one hundred weight to an English acre, gave a considerable in- 
crease of grass over land which Avas not manured, but not suffi- 
cient to pay the expense of the application. Whether the efiects 
of the application will last more than a year, remains to be de- 
termined. The second crop showed no benefit. 

Fifty-two difi'erent varieties of wheat have been experimented 
upon by the pupils, besides several varieties of barley and oats. 
Specimens of the various products, prepared in a form to be par- 
tially compared with each other, were exhibited at the annual 
examination. These are certainly most useful lessons for the 
pupils. The practice of thorough-draining and subsoiling has 
been fully tested upon the farm ; and it is stated that, on the 
land thus treated, the crops have been augmented full one third, 
besides the increased facility given to the cultivation of the land 
and the harvesting of the crops. 
18* 



210 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The frugality and excellent economy manifest in all the ar- 
rangements at Templemoyle, are much to be commended. 
" They discourage the admission to the school of lads from Eng- 
land, especially because the diet has not been usually found as 
well adapted to English as to Irish habits." In my opinion, it is 
much to the credit of the Irish to be satisfied and contented with 
a meagre diet. To a large portion of the Irish peasantry, it 
must be a paradise to get even a sufficiency of food to keep 
their waistbands from a most melancholy collapse. 

This institution has already done much good. In 1843, about 
sixteen years after its commencement, it was ascertained that 
most of the young men who had received its benefits were settled 
in respectable and useful conditions of life. But, according 
to the present course of studies, the food for the mind is almost 
as simple and restricted as that for the body. The studies 
pursued should be greatly extended ; and as the principal 
expenses are already incurred, and the fixtures, both for the 
school and the farm, are to a great degree complete, the ad- 
ditional cost for providing instruction, more especially in various 
branches of natural science, would not be large. 

3. BROOKFIELD AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 

This establishment, about twelve miles from Belfast, which I 
had also the pleasure of visiting, is an eleemosynary establish- 
ment, supported by the voluntary subscriptions of the religious 
society of Friends. It seems that many of this society, in 
Ireland, from one cause or another, had fallen into poverty and 
habits of neglect ; and their children, many of whom had 
become orphans, were growing up without the advantage of 
religious habits, and without that kind superintendence which 
this remarkable society is accustomed to exercise over those who 
are connected with it. They took pity upon these stray sheep, 
which were wandering as it were at large and unprovided for : 
and, with a spirit of charity, guided by the soundest judgment 
and wisdom, they determined to gather as many of them to- 
gether as their means would enable them to support, and, 
besides giving them a substantial and useful undertaking, to 
train them in habits of honest and useful labor, intending to 
make the products of that labor, as far as practicable, conducive 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 211 

to their support. They accordingly purchased the lease of a 
farm of twenty-four acres ; and having erected and fitted up the 
necessary buildings, they prepared for fifty children ; and the 
number of forty was soon found. The age at Avhich children 
are admitted is between eleven and thirteen. On account of the 
condition of the funds, some have been admitted at an earlier 
age, for whom the friends who placed them there were willing 
to pay the full cost. In sex they are about equally divided. 
The establishment is under the direction of a man and his wife, 
who act as master and matron, and one schoolmaster, with a 
female assistant, who manage the literary department. The 
branches taught are "reading, writing, arithmetic, English 
grammar, geography, the catechism, and Scripture history." 
The oldest boys are taught likewise geometry and surveying. 
The children, with the exception of one ploughman, perform all 
the work on the farm and in the house ; and the great object is 
to qualify them for useful labor and domestic service by a 
thorough knowledge of husbandry and house-work. An ad- 
dition, since the first purchase, has been made to the land, so 
that the whole is now nearly fifty acres. " The boys have 
levelled about three hundred and forty-two perches of old 
ditches, which intersected the land, and have thus thrown 
nearly the whole of the farm into one field, portioned out into 
suitable sections for a regular four-course rotation of crops. 
They have also completed four hundred and eighty-eight 
perches of underground drain filled with stones. The drains 
are at the distance of from six to eight ^rards apart, according 
to circumstances ; and in this way it is proposed to go gradually 
over the farm, as time and opportunity permit." 

The average cost of supporting a child at this institution is as 
under : — 

£. s. d. 

Provisions, 5 19 IJ 

Clothing, 18 61 

Salaries, 100 

Other expenses, . 14 2 

£9 1 10 

Deducting the profits on the farm, leaves 

the average cost of a pupil at . . £6 6 9 



212 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The expenditure for the year in the family I shall give beioW; 
as it may be useful to compare it with some similar establish- 
ments in the United States. 



Expenditure of the Brookfield Agricultural School, for the 
Year ending 31sf of Third Month, 1844. 

£. s. d. 
Butcher's meat, (purchased,) .... 15 8 
Potatoes, meal, groceries, &c., (pur- 
chased,) 66 7 9 

81 15 9 



Milk, 10,227 quarts, (supplied by farm,) 63 18 4^ 

Potatoes, 1,150 bushels, .do. . . 42 10 

Vegetables, do. . . 6 

Fowls and eggs, . . . do. . . 2 18 3 

Oatmeal, do. . . 31 13 

Wheatmeal, do. . . 9 13 8 

Pigs, &c do. . . 23 10 9 

Fuel, 13 17 2 

Clothing, 40 17 7 

Salaries, 44 

Medicine, 519 

Furniture, for wear and tear, . . . 10 19 

Stationery and printing, 16 1 10 

Contingencies, 7 3 8 



180 4 Qh 



138 1 
£400 9^ 

I add likewise the Farm Account, for the year ending 31st 
March, 1844, with which the superintendent was kind enough 
to favor me. The result is encouraging, and the good done is 
certain. The present superintendents and teachers are father 
and mother, son and daughter, of the same family ; and their 
subsistence is included in the charges against the school. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 213 

^^ Farm Account for one Year, ending 31st of TIdrd Month, 1844. 

Dr. £. s. d. 

To stock, 31st of 3d Month, 1843, 131 2 3 

" rent and taxes, 50 2 6 

" cattle, 46 4 10 

'' seeds for sowing, 809 

" smith's work and repairs, 8 7 6 

■' utensils, 11 19 

^' farm contingencies, 24 2 6 

'• profit on farm, 121 2 4^ 

£401 1 8^ 

Cr. ■■ 

By produce sold, viz. — 

" wheat, 15 cwt. qr. 24 lbs. ... 7 9 7 

" turnips, &c 18 

" fowls and eggs, 12 2 

'' potatoes, 0118 

- cattle, 13 18 

24 9 5 

By produce supplied to house : — 

" wheat, 25 cwt. qrs. 4 lbs. . . .12 10 2 

'' oats, 6 tons, 11 cwt 43 5 6 

" potatoes, 1,250 bushels, .... 62 10 

'' pork, 20 11 3 

•' vegetables, 6 

" fowls and eggs, 2 18 3 

'• milk, 10,227 quarts, at Ud. . . . 63 18 4* 

^ " 211 13 6J 

By stock : — 

'• hay and straw, 8 

" oats, £6 : 3:6; potatoes, £1:8. . 7 11 6 

" manure, 20 

" cattle, 84 

" utensils, 30 7 

•' seed in the ground, 9 6 3 

" turnips, 4 10 

" fowls, 140 



Value of boys' labor on the farm, £35." 



164 18 9 
£401 1 8.^ 



214 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The farming was plain and creditable, the crops good and 
improving. The strictest economy, as it should be, was studied 
in every department. The cattle were all soiled — that is, fed in 
the stalls, as the limits of the fami did not admit of grazing. 
As an exact account was kept of the milk obtained from the 
cows, I was curious to ascertain the average amount yielded 
by each cow. Many circumstances, in such cases, which it is 
difficult to estimate, ought to be taken into the account ; such as 
the precise number of cows in milk through the year, the length 
of time any of them may have gone dry, and the number of 
calves raised. Leaving these matters entirely out of the calcula- 
tion, the yield was equal to five quarts of milk per day to a cow, 
for the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. This is 
more than an average yield. What is called the Irish cow, the 
native cow of the country, is a very valuable dairy animal, and 
of a good character for grazing, but is, I am sorry to say, fast 
disappearing under the introduction of what are deemed im- 
proved breeds, but which may not be better adapted to the wants 
and condition of the country. 

There is no charge in these accounts for what the superin- 
tendent at Glasnevin pleasantly calls a "blow-out" at harvest- 
home and other festivals; and no £4 7s. 7d. for "wine and 
beer " at the examination, as at Templemoyle, — an omission, in 
a place of education, which will be looked upon with indulgence 
by at least one man in Ireland, who bears an infinitely higher title 
than "very reverend," — I mean the very excellent Father Mat- 
thew. I am certain I should be doing a great injustice if my 
allusions, in this case, implied any immoral excess either in the 
teachers or pupils of these institutions. There is no ground, 
within my knowledge, for any such inferences ; but the influ- 
ences of every kind, which bear upon the minds and habits of 
the young in places of education, are of the highest moment in 
regard to their Avelfarc. The vinous " blow-outs " which occa- 
sionally occur at the anniversaries of some of our own literary 
institutions might, I think, be very safely dispensed with. But I 
leave the subject with wiser heads, and with men whose deep 
interest in the welfare of the young, and in the cause of good 
morals in the community, cannot be doubted, whatever may 
be their opinions of the doctrine of total abstinence. Few 
can have failed to observe that, if a person, who attempts 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 215 

blindfolded to make his way across a room to a particular point, 
at first setting out tm*ns his feet but very slightly from the direct 
line, he finds himself, quite unconsciously, brought up at a very 
difterent corner from that at which he aimed. In a distance not 
great, I have seen persons, in this way, without their knowing 
it, completely turned round, and pursuing an opposite direction 
from that which they intended. I hope my readers will pardon 
this homely illustration of a point of infinite moment to the 
young ; I mean, that of setting out right — what the French call 
" taking the first step." A misdirection, a slight aberration in 
the beginning, an indulgence in itself wholly venial, may carry 
them on blindfolded, and consequently without a consciousness 
of their error, and so Avithout the disposition to correct their 
mistakes, until they find themselves at a result wholly unde- 
signed, and as deeply as possible to be deplored. 

I thought extremely well of this Brookfield School as a chari- 
table institution. The course of literary education \vas indeed 
very limited ; but how valuable was the training of these chil- 
dren to habits of industry ! I think they might add to this in- 
stitution, with great advantage, some of the useful mechanical 
trades, — such as tailoring, shoemaking, carpentering, and black- 
smithing ; and, for the girls, spinning and weaving ; knitting and 
plain sewing they are of course taught. The mere giving of 
money to the poor is the cheapest of all charities, and in its 
expediency always the most doubtful. But to give these poor, 
neglected outcasts a useful education ; to put into their hands,, 
beyond the power of its being wrested from them, the means of 
getting an honest livelihood, and of being useful to the commu- 
nity ; to give them, during the exposed period of childhood and 
youth, a comfortable home, and make them know that they 
have friends who feel the deepest interest in their character and 
good conduct ; is a benefaction of the highest order, — as credit- 
able to those who bestow as it is useful to those who receive it. 
"To seek and to save those who were lost " and perishing, was 
a mission of the divine mercy, which angels came from their 
celestial spheres to celebrate. How highly is man honored 
when he is permitted, in his humble measure, to imitate the 
beneficence of HeaveiuL^ When one looks here, daily and , 
hourly, upon the thousands and millions, in Ireland, England, "O 
and Scotland, of unprotected, uncared-for, squalid, neglected, ^ 



216 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

half-clad, half-fed, reckless, miserable, suffering children and 
young persons, growing up in this country of established 
churches and institutions called Christian, of arts the most pol- 
ished, of learning the most cultivated, and of a wealth and lux- 
ury transcending even the wildest dreams of avarice ; and reads 
in the ever-turning page their certain history, their sure progress 
from the cradle to the street, from the street to crimes so enor- 
mous, so extraordinary, as to make one's head grow dizzy at the 
recital, and one's hair stand on end with fright ; and from these 
crimes to the prison, and from the prison to the transport-ship or 
to the gallows ; the benevolent heart is ready to burst with 
grateful joy to see any green spot in the desert, to perceive even 
one brand plucked from the burning, even one unconscious or 
struggling victim rescued from the descending and overwhelming 
current. 

4. LARNE SCHOOL. 

My next excursion was to the Agricultural School at Larne, 
where I had the pleasure of witnessing the examination of a 
class of boys in agricultural chemistry and in practical agricul- 
ture. This is not, properly speaking, an agricultural school, but 
a national school, where the common branches of education are 
taught ; and there is connected with it a department or class of 
agricultural study, and a small piece of land, which the boys 
cultivate, and on which, in the way of experiment, the prin- 
ciples of agriculture, and its general practice, are, within a very 
limited extent, illustrated and tested. The examination was 
eminently successful, and creditable alike to the teacher and the 
pupils. It was from this establishment that a detachment of 
five pupils was sent for examination to the great meeting of 
the Agricultural Society of Scotland the last autumn, where 
their attainments created a great sensation, and produced an 
impression, on the subject of the importance of agricultural 
education, which is likely to lead to the adoption of some uni- 
versal system on the subject. 

I shall transcribe the account given of the occasion : " Five 
boys from the school at Larne were introduced to the meeting, 
headed by their teacher. They seemed to belong to the better 
class of peasantry, being clad in homely garbs ; and they appeared 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 217 

to be from twelve to fifteen years of age. They were examined, 
ill the first instance, by the inspector of schools, in grammar, 
geography, and arithmetic ; and scarcely a single question did 
they fail to answer correctly. They were then examined, by an 
agricultural professor, in the scientific branches, and by two 
practical farmers in the practical departments of agriculture. 
Their acquaintance with these was alike delightful and astonish- 
ing. They detailed the chemical constitution of the soil and the 
effect of manures, the land best fitted for green crops, the 
different kinds of grain, the dairy, and the system of rotation of 
crops. Many of these answers required considerable exercise of 
reflection ; and as previous concert between themselves and the 
gentlemen who examined them was out of the question, their 
acquirements seemed to take the meeting by surprise ; at the 
same time they afforded it the utmost satisfaction, as evincing 
how much could be done by a proper system of training." 

I confess the establishment at Larne aftorded me, in this 
respect, very high gratification. The agricultural studies are 
not made compulsory, but voluntary ; and one hour per day is 
devoted to agricultural labor. The Board of Education in 
Ireland have now under their control three thousand teachers ; 
and it is proposed, wherever it may be deemed useful, to make 
agriculture a standard branch of common-school education. 
They already have seven agricultural training establishments ; 
and it is in contemplation to have twenty-five, with which it is 
proposed shall be connected small model farms, so that every 
where, besides furnishing this most valuable instruction to the 
pupils of the schools, the farmers in the vicinity may be excited 
and instructed to improve their cultivation. Thus diffusive is 
the nature of all beneficence. A good deed, like a stone thrown 
into the water, is sure to agitate the whole mass. Its strongest 
efiects will be felt where the blow is given ; but the concentric 
circles are seen extending themselves on every side, and reach 
much farther than the eye can follow them. In the moral as 
well as physical world, the condition of mutual attraction 
and dependence is universal and indissoluble. We have reason 
to hope that no good seed is ever sown in vain, but will sooner 
or later germinate and yield its proper fruits. 

These establishments do certainly the highest honor and 
credit to the intelligence and philanthropy of Ireland, and their 
19 



218 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

beneficent effects must presently be seen in alleviating the 
indescribable amount of wretchedness under which this beau- 
tiful country and fine-spirited people have been so long crushed 
to the earth — a wretchedness which, to be understood, must 
be seen. 

5. SCHOOL AT EALING. 

An establishment of a somewhat similar character exists in 
England, perhaps many more than one, which I regret that 
accident merely has prevented my visiting. I refer to the school 
at Ealing, near London, and I believe there are others, supported 
by a noble woman, full of benevolence, Lady Noel Byron. At 
this school, three hours a day are devoted to labor on the farm ; 
and in addition to instruction in cultivating the soil, the boys 
are taught to perform all the other operations necessary upon it, 
such as carpenter work, bricklaying, glazing, &c. Each of the 
boys has a small plot of ground for his own cultivation, from 
which he derives a certain profit; and some of them had a pound 
or two in the Savings Bank at the end of the year. Such is the 
success of this institution, that there are now fifty applicants 
wishing to be received on the farm as boarders. 

The principal objection suggested against the devotion of a 
portion of the day to agricultural labor at a place of education, 
is, that it would interfere with the progress of their studies. It 
is extraordinary to find intelligent minds overlooking the inti- 
mate relation between physical and intellectual health. There 
can be no doubt that a man will perform more intellectual labor, 
who devotes a portion, and not a small portion, of every day to 
healthful physical exertion, than the man who, neglecting such 
exertion, abandons himself in his study exclusively to his books. 
I am quite aware that many occupations, of a mechanical or a 
commercial nature, may so exclusively occupy the mind as to 
unfit it for scientific pursuits ; but agricultural labors, quiet in 
their nature, and carried on in the open air, when pursued with 
moderation, so far from fatiguing, refresh and invigorate the 
mind, and prepare it for the more successful application to 
pursuits exclusively intellectual. The laboratory of nature, open 
always to the laboring farmer, is itself a school of philosophy to 
the intelligent, reflecting, and inquiring mind, and presents con- 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, 219 

tinually topics of the most healthful, useful, and elevating 
character. 

6. AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AT CIRENCESTER. 

In England, it is now proposed to establish a seminary exclu- 
sively agricultural in its character. The preliminary steps have 
been taken, and the foundation laid for an agricultural college. 
A considerable sum of money has been subscribed, a farm of 
about five hundred acres has been taken, and the accommoda- 
tions for about two hundred pupils arc in a course of preparation. 
It has been felt as a serious want that, while every other pro- 
fession — law, physic, and divinity — has its exclusive means and 
institutions for education, and the army and the navy have their 
schools, — agriculture, the most important and extensive of all the 
arts, and without which it Avould be difficult to say where would 
be the sinews of war or the means of commerce, or what use 
there would be either for law, physic, or theology, should have 
no place for the teaching of those arts and sciences, and for the 
making of those experiments, on which its success so mainly 
depends. The plans are not fully matured, nor the course of 
instruction prescribed ; but the scientific qualifications of some, 
and the practical character of others of the gentlemen concerned 
in its establishment, and standing as its sponsors, warrant the 
best eftorts for its success. The farm is taken at a moderate 
rent, through the liberality of its noble proprietor ; and it is 
hoped that, aided by the resources of the farm, the expense of a 
pupil for boarding and tuition may not exceed twenty-five or 
thirty pounds a year — that is, one hundred and twenty-five, or 
one hundred and fifty dollars. Twenty thousand pounds, or one 
hundred thousand dollars, were deemed the necessary capital 
with which to begin the establishment ; and, to the great honor 
of England, there are few objects of determined public utility, 
for which, from its abundant resources and public spirit, ample 
funds may not be obtained. This is a sort of joint stock com- 
pany, in shares of twenty-five, or thirty pounds each, in which 
the subscribers will have, as is right, the preference in recom- 
mending pupils to the foundation. 



220 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



XXVI. — GENERAL VIEWS OF AGRICULTURAL 
EDUCATION. 

These details must all be useful to my own countrymen, 
among whom the subject of agricultural schools has been much 
discussed, and where a distinct proposition is already before the 
public for the establishment of an institution of this nature. 
Under these circumstances, I shall be excused if I extend my 
remarks on this subject. I shall do this with unfeigned diffi- 
dence, and especially from my ignorance of the various estab- 
lishments for agricultural education upon the Continent. These 
are often referred to as examples of success, and some of them 
I hope to have an opportunity of inspecting. 

It is quite certain that the course of education pursued at 
most colleges and universities is quite unsuited to qualify men 
for the common business and pursuits of life. Indeed, it would 
seem, in many cases, to operate as a positive disqualification ; 
and men who may have distinguished themselves at our univer- 
sities for their classical and scholastic attainments, are often 
thrown upon society as helpless and as incompetent to provide 
for themselves, or to serve the community, as children. We have 
small encouragement at present, I confess, to look for any thing 
better. The system of education at our colleges and universities 
has undergone little substantial alteration for a century ; and 
what is called classical learning, and the subtleties and puerilities 
of scholastic divinity, occupy as much attention as formerly, 
and hold a place in these ancient seats of learning so high in the 
estimation of those to whom the management of these places 
is intrusted, that there is little hope of dislodging them. I am 
no enemy to classical acquirements, as a matter of elegant orna- 
ment and taste, as a source of delightful recreation, and as an 
essential element in a complete education. But to give them a 
preference in any way to learning more useful, substantial, and 
practical, is not to estimate things according to their real im- 
portance. The time and expense devoted to them might be 
given to studies infinitely more valuable. As to the time occu- 
pied in studying what is called divinity, I am not far from the 
opinion that the world would be no loser if every commentary 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 221 

upon the Scriptures, and every treatise upon the controversial 
subjects of religion, since the days of the apostles, were extin- 
guished forever, and men were sent to the New Testament, and 
to the simple teachings of the Divine Master, only, to learn their 
duty, and the only elements of true happiness and moral improve- 
ment. A college, therefore, of the practical arts, and of those 
sciences which directly bear upon practice, must be greatly 
desired by that portion of the community whose education 
must be to them a means of subsistence, and who have little 
time to cultivate the arts but with a view to apply them at once 
to the purposes of practical life. 

It must be admitted, likewise, that many of these arts and 
sciences are, properly speaking, the creations of modern times, 
and could not be expected to find their place in schemes of edu- 
cation formed in a remote period. Chemistry, mineralogy, geol- 
ogy, and electricity, are all of modern date. There are those 
living, who may be said to have assisted at their birth, and have 
rocked the cradle of their infancy. All these are intimately 
connected with the practical arts, and especially with the ad- 
vancement of the great art of agriculture j and we may confi- 
dently look for the most important benefits to agriculture from 
the study and application of these sciences. Botany, likewise. 
and the nature, habits, and uses of plants ; comparative anatomy 
and physiology, the study of which may prove so useful in the 
improvement of the breeds of domestic animals, and in the treat- 
ment of the diseases and injuries to which they are liable ; the 
art of measuring superficies and solids, an art so constantly in 
demand in practical agriculture ; mechanics, and the construc- 
tion of farming implements and buildings ; hydraulics, a science 
so important in draining, irrigation, and the general management 
of water, and the uses of steam, that wonderful agent, which 
seems destined to exert a more powerful influence over the 
affairs and common business of the world than any or than all 
other agents besides ; the principles of engineering, in the con- 
struction of roads and embankments ; — all these are matters to 
be learned and studied, as furnishing direct uses and aid in the 
practice of agriculture, and bearing immediately upon its ad- 
vancement. These considerations demonstrate the importance 
of an institution, where such branches may be taught under the 
19* 



222 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

advantages of competent teachers, and means and apparatus 
adapted to their iUustration. 

A competent knowledge of these branches should be consid- 
ered as almost indispensable in those persons who would under- 
take the cultivation of a farm, or the management of large 
landed estates, either for themselves or others. It may be said 
that the style of farming in the United States is so wholly 
different from that in Great Britain, that, from the necessities 
of the one, we can make no inferences as to the wants of the 
other. I know that we have no class of land stewards, or 
persons employed for the management of the estates of other 
men ; that our farms are comparatively small ; and that a class 
of tenant-farmers is scarcely known among us. It appears to 
me, however, that it is quite as important that a man should be 
able himself to manage his own farm well, as that another man 
should be qualified to manage it for him ; and that farms of a 
moderate size, where the farmers depend upon their returns for 
their support, have need of the greater appliances to render them 
productive, and furnish, upon the whole, a better opportunity for 
a successful agriculture, and for an agriculture of a highly 
experimental and improved character, than farms of a very large 
size, where the attention must be greatly divided, and the 
management — the mere daily routine of operations — requires 
the most incessant and absorbing care. 

But there are considerations, of a more general character, 
which deserve attention. No one will pretend that agriculture, 
even in the more improved form in which it is any where to be 
found, has as yet approximated the perfection of the art. The 
perfection of the art of agriculture is that in which the largest 
amount of product is obtained at the least expense of labor and 
manure, and with the least exhaustion to the land. Indeed, 
there is reason to hope that we may presently reach a system of 
cultivation in which, though the crops may be large, the land 
itself shall not only not be exhausted, but be in a course of con- 
tinual amelioration. I know well there must be a limit ; but that 
limit no one can yet define. We know already that crops with 
large leaves, and therefore large powers of absorption, are com- 
monly improving crops ; and we know equally well that the 
grov;th of a forest upon land, so far from exhausting, is, in fact, 



INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE UPON AGRICULTURE. 223 

an improver of tlie soil. There is every reason to hope, there- 
fore, that such a system of husbandry may presently be found, 
when, without any extraneous aid. and trom the resources of the 
farm itself, the largest crops may be obtained, and the powers 
of production extended. The system of nature every where, if 
man performs his duty, is a system of amelioration, and not of 
deterioration ; it is every where a system of recuperative com- 
pensations, if man does not controvert or pervert its laws. 

That our crops, for example, arc not what they might be, is 
universally admitted. Within the last few years, crops of many 
kinds have increased immensely. A few years since, fifty 
bushels of Indian corn, to an acre, was deemed a large crop. 
One hundred have been frequently produced. Thirty bushels 
of wheat has heretofore been deemed more than an ordinary 
yield. Fifty is now not uncommon. I have known sixty, and 
nearly seventy, to have been grown, and, over a large farm, the 
crop to have averaged fifty-six bushels. Thirty tons of carrots 
per acre is the ordinary crop of a farmer within my knowledge ; 
and I have on my table before me the authenticated statement 
of eighty-eight tons of mangel-wurzel to the acre. I am 
willing to admit that these are rare instances. Some of them 
may be considered as single instances ; but it is obvious that one 
well-established case is as good as a thouoand in demonstrating 
the practicability of that which is claimed to have been done. 



XXVII. — INFLUENCE OF KNOAVLEDGE UPON 
AGRICULTURE. 

Here, then, there is an opportunity for the highest degree of 
intelligence, as applicable to the improvement of agriculture ; 
for who can doubt that these extraordinary results are the const;- 
quence of that intelligence and enlightened skill, which are 
equally the instruments of success in every other art. But it 
seems idle to argue this point. All the improvements which 
have been made in agriculture are as much the resitlt of the 
application of mind and of knowledge to the subject, as any of 



224 EUllOPEAN AGRICULTLTKE. 

the improvements made in manufactnres or the mechanic arts, 
Accident has produced nothing. The dull, plodding laborer 
originates nothing, any more than the beast which he drives. 
The present advanced state of agriculture as a practical art, all 
the improvements which have been effected in it, are due to the 
highly-intelligent minds, the men of science, of learning, of 
observation, of skill, who have applied their attention, and have 
devoted their time, talents, and fortunes, to it. 

The pioneer in the improved agriculture of the United States 
was Jared Eliot, of Connecticut — an educated clergyman, whose 
essays have a permanent value, and may be read with advantage 
even at the present day. The author of the New England 
Farmer's Dictionary, a most valuable book, published half a 
century since, and which has rendered an immense service to 
agriculture, was the Rev. Samuel Deane, of Maine. John 
Lowell, who contributed far more than any other individual to 
the improvement of agriculture in the United States, was an 
accomplished lawyer, a man of science and of taste, and as much 
distinguished for his intellectual rank and attainments as he was 
eminent for the highest virtues which could adorn his character 
as a man. Aaron Dexter, the beloved physician, an eminent 
chemist in the very imperfect state of the science, a man whose 
name was a synonyme for kindness, and to whose memory I shall 
be pardoned for here recording the humble tribute of my most 
grateful affection and respect, was an eminent friend and pro- 
moter of agricultural improvement. Fessenden, Buel, and Gay- 
lord, were all men of highly-cultivated minds, stored with 
scientific lore, distinguished for their zeal in the cause of an 
enlightened agriculture, and honored with the power, which 
they used with so much zeal and efficiency, of conferring 
immense benefits upon the agricultural community. While 
even this Report is in progress, the grave has closed over the 
remains of a devoted friend to agricultural improvement in Mas- 
sachusetts — a man of the highest order of intellect, of a mind 
rich in various knowledge, and of profound legal attainments ; 
and for his personal worth, his public spirit, and private virtues, 
surpassed by none in his claims upon the affection and respect 
of his friends and fellow-citizens.* On the English side of the 



» William Prescott, Esq., LL. D. 



SCIENCES TO BE TAUGHT. 225 

Atlantic, Tull, the author of the improved husbandry : Young, 
the eminent agricuUurist, who kindled so great a zeal, and dif- 
fused so great a mass of information, among his countrymen ; 
and Sinclair, as great a benefactor to improved agriculture as 
England has known, — were all men of liberal education and 
distinguished scientific attainments. Von Thaer, on the Conti- 
nent, himself a host in agricultural skill and science, was bred to 
a learned profession. If I were at liberty to violate a rule which 
I have made absolute, I might refer to many living examples, on 
both sides of the water, of men of the finest genius, the most 
accomplished education, and rare scientific attainments, who 
have rendered, and are daily rendering, the highest benefits to 
practical agriculture, and which without their aid and enterprise 
would never be realized. It is, then, with agriculture as with 
every other valuable art ; — its success and improvement must 
depend mainly upon the education of those who pursue it, and 
all hope of its progress must rest upon the science, in the most 
extended sense of that term, which is brought to bear upon it. 



XXVIII. — SCIENCES TO BE TAUGHT. 

The Agricultural College at Cirencester proposes a specific 
education in agriculture, and the cultivation of those sciences 
which bear directly upon it. Botany, not as a mere catalogue 
of names and classes of vegetable productions, but as embracing 
the whole subject of vegetable physiology and the artificial 
improvement of plants, must of course be highly useful to a 
farmer. The cultivation of fruit and forest trees is necessarily 
included in it. The science of mechanics, so useful in the con- 
struction and improvement of agricultural implements, must be 
of constant and valuable application in the management of 
a farm. 



226 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



XXIX. — CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 

But what seems mainly to be relied on, in this case, is chem- 
ical knowledge ; and the high value of this knowledge it is at 
least safe to presmne. Confident, however, as some persons 
seem to be in the discoveries already made, still it must be 
acknowledged that the application of these discoveries to prac- 
tical agriculture has been hitherto so limited, imperfect, and 
doubtful, that we are compelled to consider ourselves as yet 
only in the infancy of the science. I do not mean in the 
smallest measure to undervalue the science ; nor to disparage 
what has already been done ; nor to discourage the sanguine 
hopes which some entertain for the future ; but in the present 
state of agricultural chemistry, the extreme confidence of some 
persons may be at least pronounced premature. The application 
of sulphuric acid to bones seems as yet to be the only well- 
established case of the application of chemical science to the 
improvement of practical agriculture upon scientific principles ; 
and this certainly atfords strong grounds to hope for much more. 
The operations of gypsum are still an insoluble mystery, and the 
explanations which have been given of its effects do not appear 
to be confirmed by facts. The application of lime to the soil, 
and its particular advantages and uses, are still among the vexed 
questions of agriculture. Its beneficial mechanical effects are often 
obvious, but its chemical operation is not so well defined. A 
farmer as eminent as Scotland produces, Avho has for a long 
series of years used lime most bountifully upon his farm, told 
me he remained entirely at a loss to determine whether it was 
of any service or not. The same uncertainty of explanation is 
applicable to various manures, in regard to their mode of opera- 
tion and their precise chemical effects. I do not hold this as a 
reason for rejecting the aid of chemistry, but only as a ground 
for moderating a too sanguine confidence in its power. As it 
offers certainly the most probable means of solving many of the 
secrets of nature's operations, and as in many of the mechanical 
arts its triumphs are complete, there are the strongest reasons 
for pressing our inquiries by means of it, and for the best hopes 



CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 227 

of as much success as, in the present condition of the human 
mind, we have any right to expect. 

The great vahie of chemical science is deemed to consist in 
its facility and power of analysis ; but in this respect it seems to 
have advanced but little farther, excepting in changing the 
terms, than the ancient doctrine that all matter was resolvable' 
into four elements — earth, air, fire, and water. The composi- 
tion of albumen, fibrin, caseine, and gluten, and of each of them, 
is represented, by chemical analysis, as precisely the same in the 
nature and quantity of their original elements ; as, for example, 
they consist of carbon, 48 ; hydrogen, 36 ; nitrogen, 6 ; oxygen, 
15 ; — but to our senses, and in their uses, they are obviously 
altogether different. Now, chemistry explains the difficulty, — if 
explanation it can be called, — by stating that the difference in 
these substances arises from a different mechanical arrangement 
of the atoms or particles of which they are composed ; but until 
chemistry can explain how this arrangement differs in the respec- 
tive cases — until it can take the original elements, and compound 
or arrange them at its pleasure, so as to produce their different 
forms or substances — the explanation is certainly very far from 
complete. It is, indeed, not certain that even these four great 
principles — the existence of which is so well established and 
defined — are themselves ultimate elements ; but admitting the 
fact, their precise nature is wholly unexplained, in the present 
state of human knowledge. Newton, in revealing the operation 
of a principle of gravitation, and in explaining its wonderful 
laws, has yet thrown no light upon the nature of the force 
itself; and, in dissecting the beautiful composition of light into 
its seven primary elements, has yet not advanced one hair's 
breadth in defining what light itself is. I know it is now the 
habit to believe that every thing in nature may be resolved into 
chemical or electrical agency, the laws of which are determined 
and explicable, and to discard all notions of what is termed the 
vital agency. I cannot myself doubt that every thing in nature 
is governed by determinate and general laws ; laws, in respect to 
whose existence and operation science has already made very 
great advances, and, for aught that can be 'foreseen, may pres- 
ently completely understand them ; but as yet the goal is far 
from being reached ; and human reason, with all its illumination, 



228 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and in the hour of its loftiest pride, must abase itself in the dust, 
in the presence of that Omniscience before which all human 
wisdom seems little more than ignorance and folly. 

Until Science will explain to me by what force I move my 
muscles at my pleasure, what mind is, what matter is, what 
knowledge itself is, and what are the records of memory, — or even 
afford me some means of conjecture, — I may be permitted to 
demur to her loud notes of triumph, and to feel that there are 
still many depths which the line of our philosophy has not yet 
reached, and innumerable simple processes in nature, of daily 
occurrence, which are utterly beyond our explanation. That 
there is at work, in all animal and vegetable life, a vital agency, 
who can entertain a doubt ? I do not know that it is not resolv- 
able into the principles of chemical solution and affinity, or into 
electrical or galvanic agency ; but the assumption, in the present 
state of science, would be, I think, premature, without stronger 
grounds on which to rest it. 



XXX. — ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 

In the chemical analysis of soils, likewise, upon which so 
much stress is laid, there are difficulties, in the practical applica- 
tion of our knowledge, sufficiently discouraging. The complaint 
has been constantly and very emphatically made, that the 
analyses of former chemists, such as Davy, Chaptal, and others, 
were all too general, and therefore of little or no practical value. 
It may bo said of modern analyses, that they startle one by their 
precision and minuteness. 

I shall be excused, I hope, if I endeavor to lessen somewhat 
the dryness and dulncss of these discussions, to my readers, by a 
matter of fact, certainly not without its interest to me, and which 
may bear some analogy to the case before us. Some years 
since, when suffering under a severe illness for several months, 
I was sometimes amused, as far as it was possible for me, under 
such circumstances, to be amused, by the great, and I had almost 



ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 229 

saidj endless variety of articles which entered into the prescrip- 
tions of my medical advisers in the customary form of grains, 
scruples, drams, and mixtures. So much of this article was for 
this specific purpose, and so much of that for another. This 
was to qualify that ; that was to qualify this. This was to 
prevent such an article doing too much, and that was to prevent 
its doing too little. One was to operate upon the bile, another 
upon the blood ; one upon the respiration, and another upon the 
digestion. And all this was to be going on, and to be accom- 
plished, at the same time. I confess I was often in the situation, 
in respect to my physician, of the wondering pupils of Gold- 
smith's village schoolmaster, and marvelled " that one small 
head could carry all he knew." I had, at least, the consolation 
in the case of feeling that, as the surgeons often pleasantly term 
it, when amputating a limb, or operating for the extraction of the 
stone, I was furnishing at least a beautiful experiment in the 
way of medical science ; and it must be said to the credit of my 
physician, whose kindness amidst all this I never can forget, 
that, although his philosophy and his scientific ardor carried him 
to the most extreme tests, and he might be said to have sus- 
pended me over a precipice by a twine string, confident that, if 
I dropped, it would at least prove that common twine was not 
strong enough in such cases, — a most important fact to be 
ascertained, — I was not quite used up, but was, after a while, 
enabled to show myself erect again, a perfect monument of the 
triumph of his skill. 

Let us now open at random upon some of the analyses given 
us in the work of the most distinguished chemist of the day, and 
inquire who has skill to prescribe for cases so complicated in 
their nature, or in any event what prescription would suit the 
case, but one as multiform and mixed as those of my own 
physician. 

SOILS OF HEATHS. 

" 1. Soil of a heath converted into arable land in the vicinity 

of Brunswick. It is naturally sterile, but produces good crops 

when manured with lime, marl, cow-dung, or the ashes of the 

heaths which grow upon it." [It would be difficult, I think, to 

20 



230 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

find many soils, where the climate did not forbid it, which would 
not produce good crops under such treatment.] 

" Silica, and coarse silicious sand, 71.504 

Alumina, 0.780 

Protoxide, and peroxide of iron, principally com- 
bined with humus, 0.420 

Peroxide of manganese, idem, 0.220 

Lime, idem, 0.134 

Magnesia, idem, 0.032 

Potash and soda, principally as silicates, .... 0.058 

Phosphoric acid, principally as phosphate of iron, . 0.115 

Sulphuric acid, (in gypsum,) 0.018 

Chlorine, (in common salt,) 0.014 

Humus soluble in alkalies, 9.820 

Humus with vegetable remains, ....... 14,975 

Resinous matters, 1.910 

100.000 

" Ashes of the soil of the heath before being converted into 
arable land : — 

" Silica, with silicious sand, 92.641 

Alumina, 1.352 

Oxides of iron and manganese, 2.324 

Lime in combination with sulphuric and phosphoric 

acids, 0.929 

Magnesia combined with sulphuric acid, .... 0.283 
Potash and soda, (principally as sulphates and 

phosphates,) 0.564 

Phosphoric acid, combined with lime, .... 0.250 

Sulphuric acid, with potash, soda, and lime, . . . 1.620 

Chlorine in common salt, 0.037 

100.000 

" 2. Surface soil of a fine-grained loam, from the vicinity of 
Brunswick. It is remarkable from the circumstance that not a 
single year passes in which corn [wheat] plants are cultivated 
upon it, without the stem of the plants being attacked by rust. 



ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 231 

Even the grain is covered with a yellow rust, and is much 
shrunk. One hundred parts of the soil contain — 

" Silica and fine silicious sand, 87.859 

Alumina, 2.652 

Peroxide of iron, Avith a large proportion of prot- 
oxide 5.132 

Protoxide and peroxide of manganese, .... 0.840 

Lime, principally combined with silica, .... 1.459 

Magnesia, idem^ 0.280 

Potash and soda, idem, 0.090 

Phosphoric acid in combination with iron, . . . 0.505 

Sulphuric acid in combination with lime, . . . 0.068 

Chlorine in common salt, 0.006 

Humus, 1.109 

100.000." 

This analysis must surely be sufficiently close and severe to 
satisfy even the most fastidious ; for here even six hundred 
thousandth parts of a particular ingredient in the soil, that is, of 
chlorine in common salt, were ascertained. 

" This soil," it is remarked, " does not suffer from want of drain- 
age ; it is well exposed to the sun ; it is in an elevated situation, 
and in a good state of cultivation. In order to ascertain whether 
the rust was due to the constituents of the soil, (phosphate of 
iron?) or to certain fortuitous circumstances unconnected with 
their operation, a portion of the land was removed to another 
locality, and made into an artificial soil of fifteen inches in 
depth. Then this barley and wheat were sown ; but it was 
found, as in the former case, that the plants were attacked by 
rust, whilst barley growing on the land surrounding this soil 
was not at all affected by the disease. From this experiment it 
follows that certain constituents in the soil favor the develop- 
ment of rust." 

But this inference does not appear to me to follow of course. 
We cannot deny that the rust may have been, in this case, the 
result of some noxious ingredients in the soil ; this appears 
highly probable. But rust is often the result of influences 
mainly atmospheric. The fact that the barley grown on soil in 
the neighborhood of the removed soil was unaffected by rust, 



232 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

while that on the removed soil was affected, is not conclusive. 
It is believed that plants are subject to rust only in particular 
stages of their growth. Now, on the supposition that the rust 
in this case was the effect of atmospheric influences, it is im- 
portant to know whether the barley (for the wheat is not com- 
pared with any other wheat) growing on the removed soil, and 
that growing in its vicinity, w^ere precisely contemporaneous in 
their growth, or in the degree of ripeness, or approach to ripe- 
ness, which they had attained. Further, it appears that the 
learned analyst was not himself able to say to what particular 
mgredient in the soil the rust was owing, nor what manure, if 
any, was used ; and manure always seriously affects the plant to 
which it is applied. 

" 3. Soil of a heath which had been brought into cultivation 
in the vicinity of Brunswick. The analysis was made before 
any crops had been grown upon it. Corn plants [wheat] were 
first reared upon the new soil, but were found to be attacked by 
rust, even on those parts which had been manured respectively 
with lime, marl, potash, Avood-ashes, bone-dust, ashes of the heath 
plant, common salt, and ammonia. One hundred parts contain — 

" Silica with coarse silicious sand, 51.337 

Alumina, 0.528 

Protoxide and peroxide of iron, in combination with 

phosphoric and humic acids, 0.398 

Protoxide and peroxide of manganese, 0.005 

Lime in combination with humus, 0.230 

Magnesia, idem, 0.040 

Potash and soda, 0.010 

Phosphoric acid, 0.066 

Sulphuric acid, 0.022 

Chlorine, 0.014 

Humus soluble in alkalies, 13.210 

Resinous matters, 2.040 

Coal of humus and water, 32.100 

100.000.^' 

Here it will be seen we come again to fractions as minute as 
hundred thousandths. 

" The next analysis represents this soil after being bm-nt. 



ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 233 

One hundred parts by weight of the soil left, after ignition, only 
fifty parts. One hundred parts of these ashes consisted of — 

Silica and silicious sand, 95.204 

Alumina, 1.640 

Peroxide of iron, 1.344 

Peroxide of manganese, 0.080 

Lime in combination with sulphuric acid, . . . 0.544 

Magnesia combined with silica, 0.465 

Potash and soda, 0.052 

Phosphoric acid, (principally as phosphate of iron,) 0.330 

Sulphm-ic acid, 0.322 

Chlorine, 0.019 

100.000 

" By comparing this analysis with the one which has preceded 
It, an increase in certain of the constituents is observed, partic- 
ularly with respect to the sulphuric acid, potash, soda, magnesia, 
oxide of iron, manganese, and alumina. From this it follows, 
that the humus, or, in other words, the vegetable remains, must 
have contained a quantity of these substances confined within it 
m such a manner that they were not exhibited by analysis." 

Here it seems, then, admitted, that the most minute chemical 
analysis, even to hundred thousandths, failed to detect all the 
latent elements of which the soil was composed. 

" Oats and barley were sown on this land the second year 
after being reclaimed, and both suffered much from rust, although 
different parts of the soil were manured with marl, lime, and 
peat-ashes, whilst other portions were left without manure. In 
the first year, all the different parts of the field produced pota- 
toes ; but they succeeded best in those parts which had been 
manured with peat-ashes, lime, and marl. In the second year, 
oats, mixed with a little barley, were sown upon the soil ; and 
the straw was found to be strongest on the parts treated with 
peat-ashes, lime, and marl." [I have never known this to fail to 
be the case on any soil.] "Red clover was sown in the third 
year ; and it appeared in best condition on those portions of the 
soil manured with marl and lime. Upon the divisions of the 
field which had been left without manure, as well as on those 
20* 



234 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

manured with bone-dust, potash, ammonia, and common salt, the 
clover scarcely appeared above ground." [Here, though so 
much stress is laid upon the infinitesimally minute divisions of 
the soil, we are left entirely at a loss as to the quantities or forms 
in which these applications were made.] "The divisions of 
the field, which had been manured in the first year with peat- 
ashes, ammonia, and ashes of wood, were sown with buck-wheat 
after the removal of the first crop of clover. The buck-wheat 
succeeded very well on all the divisions, yet a marked difference 
was perceptible in favor of the portion treated with ammonia. 
These experiments show us, that a dressing of lime did not com- 
pletely remove from the soil its tendency to impart rust to the 
plants grown upon it." [But if the lime partially corrected the 
evil, is there not reason to infer that the error was in not putting 
lime enough upon it, and that more would have completely re- 
moved it ?] " Nevertheless," the writer adds, " it is highly prob- 
able that, as soon as the protoxide of iron became converted into 
the peroxide by exposure to the atmosphere, lime would possess 
more power in decomposing the phosphate of iron." 

I shall cite only one more example in this case. 

'' 4. Subsoil of a loamy soil in the vicinity of Brunswick. It 
is remarkable that sainfoin cannot be cultivated upon it more 
than two or three years in succession. The portion analyzed 
was taken from a depth of five feet. One hundred parts con- 
tained — 

" Silica, with very fine silicious sand, .... 90.035 

Alumina, 1.976 

Peroxide of iron, 4.700 

Protoxide of iron, 1.115 

Protoxide and peroxide of manganese, 0.240 

Lime, 0.022 

Magnesia, 0.115 

Potash and soda, 0.300 

Phosphoric acid combined with iron, 0.098 

Sulphuric acid, (the greatest part in combination 

with protoxide of iron,) „ . . 1.399 

Chlorine, a trace. 

100.000 



ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 235 

'•' Now; the results of the analysis give a sufficient account of 
the failure of the sainfoin." [But it seems it can be cultivated 
upon it two or three years hi succession.] " The soil contains 
one per cent, of sulphate of the protoxide of iron, (green vitriol 
of commerce,) a salt which exerts a poisonous action upon plants. 
Lime is not present in quantity sufficient to decompose this salt. 
Hence it is that sainfoin will not thrive in this soil, nor indeed 
lucern, or any other of the plants with deep roots. The evil 
cannot be obviated by any method sufficiently economical for 
the farmer, because the soil cannot be mixed with lime at a 
depth of five or six feet." [It requires some courage for a man 
even to think of such a thing.] " For many years, experiments 
have been made in vain, in order to adopt this soil for sainfoin 
and lucern, and much expense incurred, which would all have 
been saved, had tlie soil been previously analyzed. This ex- 
ample affords a most convincing proof of the importance of 
chemical knowledge to an agriculturist." * 

Now, I think the strong impression which will be upon every 
practical man's mind, in looking at these analyses, will be, the 
utter impossibility of meeting the cases, and of adapting the cul- 
tivation and manuring with any very exact reference to the 
chemical condition of the soil ; that is, of prescribing for the 
patient. I admit that the application of chemical analyses or 
tests to the soil may be of very great importance in detecting 
the existence of any substance, as in the latter case for example, 
which is poisonous to vegetation ; though even here, the exist- 
ence of the evil itself, and the remedy, are left somewhat in 
uncertainty. I believe it may be of great utility in determining 
the general and predominant characteristics of a soil ; but with 
great respect for science, and for the labors of those men who, 
by their distinguished attainments, have conferred the highest 
benefits upon the community, I can come to no other conclusion 
than that any expectation of adapting our cultivation, upon any 
extended scale, to these minute diversities of soil, is illusory ; 
and that the most illustrious chemist living may be challenged 
in vain to prescribe any practicable culture adapted to meet, with 



* These examples of analyses of soils are by Sprengel, and taken from Liebig's 
Aoricultural Chemistry, from the chapter on the Chemical Constituents of Soils, 
p. 208, 3d American edition. 



236 



EUROPEAN AGRICLLTLRE, 



any degree of exactness, the cases given, or to recognize in his 
applications or prescriptions, with any peculiar success, the 
minute diversities of composition which are here presented. 

But suppose the application made, and even in the simplest 
form ; what sagacity is acute enough to follow it in all its opera- 
tions upon the elements, either simple or compounded, with 
which it comes in contact ? or what skill can command the 
external circumstances of heat or cold, of drought or moisture, 
which must at the time affect its operation ? No human skill 
has as yet been able to compound a soil, and say. This shall be 
more fruitful than any other. The habits and nature of different 
plants require different conditions both of soil and of culture. 

The Royal Agricultural Society of England has recently 
made a liberal grant to aid in the chemical analysis of the dif- 
ferent vegetable productions, under the direction of one of the 
most able chemists of the age : and a good deal of valuable 
information will undoubtedly be derived from this source. The 
chemical analysis of different manures has been carried on with 
eminent zeal and intelligence, and is constantly going on, to the 
great benefit, without question, of agricultural science ; but the 
extraordinary confidence which some persons indulge in the 
results of chemical science, in respect to agriculture, seems to me 
a little too sanguine, and the practical application of this knowl- 
edge by no means so easy as has been supposed. 

I am quite aware that this may appear like a digression j but, 
in considering the subject of agricultural education, it was natural 
to advert to that which seems now to be more prominent in the 
minds of agriculturists than almost any thing else — the advan- 
tages which agriculture is to derive from chemical science, and 
the consequent importance of making it the prominent subject 
of instruction. Our expectations in this matter should be in 
some degree moderated by a remark of Liebig's : in speaking of 
the analysis of soils, and after having given several examples, 
" It is unnecessary," he says, " to describe the modus operandi 
used in the analysis of these soils ; for this kind of research will 
never be made by farmers, who must apply to the professional 
chemists, if they wish for information in regard to the composi- 
tion of their soils." The science of chemistry has indeed now 
become of that enlarged character, and is occupied in such pro- 
found and difficult investigations and discoveries, that excellence 



NATURAL SCIENCE. 237 

111 it can scarcely be looked for but with those persona \rho, to 
eminent talents of research, and an extraordinary enthusiasm in 
the pursuit, devote their time almost exclusively to this object. 

A general knowledge of its principles and discoveries, and a 
facility in making some experiments in it, are all, perhaps, that 
can be expected to be given in the education at an agricultural 
college j but it is desirable and most requisite, even for this 
object, that the institution, in a competent instructor, and all 
the necessary apparatus, should furnish the means of accom- 
plishing it in the best manner, and to the greatest advantage 
This undoubtedly will be done. 



XXXI. — NATURAL SCIENCE. 

Every possible facility should be provided for the study of ev- 
ery branch of natural history, for every branch of natural history 
may be made subservient to agricultural improvement. There 
is, in my opinion, nothing which so invigorates and strengthens 
the mind as earnest and deep inquiries into nature, the study of 
natural facts, the observation of natural phenomena. There is no 
knowledge, especially to persons residing in the country, which 
affords so many practicable uses and such varied and important 
application. The man who studies books exclusively is always 
liable to be the slave of other men's opinions ; and his mind, 
losing by such restraints its native elasticity, never travels out of 
its prescribed limits. The man who goes himself to the original 
sources of knowledge, and draws water out of the very wells of 
life, acquires a force of inquiry, maintains a healthful freshness 
of mind, which grow strong continually by what they feed 
upon, multiply for themselves the sources of knowledge, turn 
every object and occurrence which they meet with into an in- 
strument of instruction, and find the world and nature no longer 
a dull, desolate, inanimate chamber, but its walls all over radiant 
with lessons of wisdom, and every object with which it is 
crowded vocal with the teachings of a divine spirit. 



238 • EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

I do not overrate the value of natural science to the agricul- 
turist, the resident in the country. For him it is the proper 
study for use, for ability, for recreation, and for ornament. 
There is yet much to be done in agriculture. I believe that 
the quantity of the products of the earth from the same extent 
of surface may in most cases be quadrupled, and that the number 
of its productions for the sustenance of man and beast may be 
multiplied far beyond any present calculation. If we may argue 
from Avhat has been done to what may be done, the perfection 
of agriculture is yet very distant, and vast improvements remain 
to be made. But this can only be effected by bringing vigorous 
and enlightened minds to bear upon the subject ; and the natural 
sciences are those which of all others best prepare and strengthen 
the mind for such investigations. The best education which 
can be given to any man is not that which merely communi- 
cates knowledge, but that which enables and induces a man to 
acquire knowledge for himself. This is what the study of the 
natural sciences particularly prompt and compel a man to do. 
These studies, pursued especially in the country, where Nature 
in such a variety of aspects is continually offering herself for ex- 
amination, give a vigor and activity of mind which particularly 
qualify men for practical objects and pursuits. 

We are to look, then, to educated men, to men of active and 
cultivated minds, to men accustomed to study, inquiry, reflection, 
observation, and experiment, for any great improvement yet to 
be made in agriculture. These are the men who have always 
been the pioneers in human progress, and these men are still to 
lead the onward march. A school, therefore, which trains such 
minds, not for literary leisure, but for the active and business 
pursuits of life, must be regarded as one of the most valuable in- 
stitutions in the community. No branch of art or business will 
be found to afford greater scope for the application of such an 
education than agriculture. 



MODEL FARM, 



239 



XXXII. — MODEL FARM. 

To the departments which may be called literary and scientific, 
the Agricultural College at Cirencester proposes to add those 
which are strictly practical, by connecting with the institution a 
farm of five hundred acres. Practical experience is of the high- 
est importance in every practical art. If it be true, that no man 
can be a thorough sailor who has not served before the mast, and 
who is not familiar with every rope in the ship, it may be as 
truly said, that no one should consider himself fnlly competent 
to the management of a farm, who is not thoroughly acquainted 
with every operation to be performed on a farm ; and, though 
he may not always be able to execute it himself, he should know 
how it is to be done, and be able to determine when it is properly 
executed. 

A model farm is intended to illustrate, as far as the nature of 
tlie soil and climate admit, the best practices in husbandry ; to 
show the management of a farm in the details and in the whole ; 
to teach the arts of ploughing, sowing, harrowing, cultivating, 
reaping, harvesting, stacking, threshing, and preparing the 
products for market ; to explain the management and treatment 
of all live stock on the place, whether designed for food or labor, 
for fattening or working, for beef, mutton, pork, wool, or dairy 
produce ; to teach the whole duty of a shepherd or grazier, and 
the whole management of the stall and the dairy. These are 
the objects proposed ; and it is intended that the labor of the farm 
shall be performed by the pupils, and its products go towards 
the support of the institution, so as to reduce the expenses of 
education. All this is well, and may be made eminently useful 
to the pupils. 



240 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



XXXIII. — EXPERIMENTAL FARM. 

It is further intended, besides presenting a model farm, that it 
shall likewise, in a measure, serve the purpose of an experi- 
mental farm. Besides presenting an example of the best man- 
agement, and the performance of all the customary operations of 
a farm in the best and most approved manner, it is designed to 
afford an opportunity of experimenting in various forms upon 
manures, seeds, plants, cultivation, and the feeding and fattening 
of animals, and upon every feasible subject, where practical 
information and exact results are important to be ascertained. 



XXXIV. — ECONOMICAL ARRANGEMENTS AT THE 
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 

Such, as I understand, are the outlines of the plan for agri- 
cultural education designed to be pursued at the College at 
Cirencester. Its objects are not to teach its pupils how to labor, 
but to qualify a class of persons for the management of their 
own, or the estates of others. The farmers here are not, as with 
us, workers on their own estates ; they are the managers or 
superintendents of the work ; but it is obviously of the highest 
importance that they should understand how every branch of 
husbandry should be conducted. For the common laborer here, 
in the present arrangements of society, I see no hope of his ever 
rising above that condition in which he is born. There are 
some extraordinary exceptions ; but they are very rare. Besides 
the impediments which lie in the way from his entire poverty, 
and the extreme difficulty of his ever acquiring more than six 
feet of the soil, and that six feet below the surface, and after all 
power of active improvement of it has ceased, any attempt to 
alter his condition in this respect, it is to be feared, as I think I 
have already shown, would be discouraged, certainly not aided, 



ECONOMICAL ARRANGEMENTS AT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 241 

by those above him. I do not know that it is necessary for me 
to discuss the question whether such a condition of society is 
preferable to one in which the laborer is first to be served from 
the produce of his own toil ; in which every man, by honest 
industry, may become the sovereign owner of the acres which 
he tills, and while he labors he may proudly feel that he is 
laboring for himself, and not for another. I shall leave all this 
to the dispassionate judgment of my reader, content even that it 
should be ascribed to the misfortune of birth, or the perverse 
prejudices of education, that I immeasurably prefer a condition 
of society, where the rights of all men are, as far as possible, 
held equal ; where no monopoly of wealth, or education, or rank, 
or power, limits or impedes the progress even of the humblest 
members of the community ; and where, in a free and equal 
competition, without injury to his neighbor, every man, for him- 
self and those dependent upon him, becomes the creator of his 
own fortunes. 

No human institution is perfect. Every effort will doubtless 
be made to adapt the institution at Cirencester to its proper and 
valuable ends. It is obvious that some practical difficulties will 
present themselves, which it will require great skill to overcome. 
The distinctions of rank, which prevail in England, and form a 
part of its constitution, are as rigorously observed at places of 
education as in any other departments of society, and are marked 
there by differences of dress and of privilege. Will these dis- 
tinctions prevail here ? If they prevail here, will they not prove 
inconvenient in respect to the labors of the farm ? or is the 
institution in no respect intended for the education of persons of 
rank? I am curious to know how this is to be arranged. 
Many noblemen in England, of the highest rank, are among the 
most intelligent practical agriculturists in the kingdom. Will 
they not desire all the advantages of the institution for their sons ? 
and will they consent to forego all the distinctions and priv- 
ileges of their rank for the sake of the education ? After all, 
the difficulty may be purely imaginary ; for I confess, in my 
simplicity, educated as I had been in the plain democratic or 
republican habits of New Eiigland, nothing surprised me more 
than the perfect readiness, with which, in every case, the claims 
of rank are acknowledged, and in most cases even the pride and 
pleasure with which this deference is paid, and their rights 
21 



242 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

admitted, on the part of the inferior classes. So far from 
looking upon this as most of my countrymen are disposed to 
regard it, and as I should regard it in my own country, as a 
mark of extreme servility, in a country where such distinctions 
are established by law, and make a part of the government, it 
seems to me as much to the credit of their good sense, as it is 
conducive to their good manners, to conform to them. In any 
institution of this kind, in my own country, no such difficulties 
can arise ; and it might seem idle for me to allude to them, were 
it not that an occasional, and I hope not unseasonable, illustra- 
tion of the manners of England will interest the curiosity of a 
large portion of my readers. 

In the next place, it seems to be designed, and certainly it is 
very desirable, that the farm shall be managed by the labor of 
the pupils ; and it is proposed that the proceeds of the farm 
should go towards the payment of the rent, and the reduction 
of other expenses of the establishment. This is, in my opinion, 
as it should be ; and, with the exception of one or two more 
experienced laborers, who, in their particular departments of 
ploughing, Sec, should be competent to act as instructors of the 
pupils, and with a few ser\^ants, (and they should be very few, 
f(ir servants, in almost all places of education, are commonly a 
great evil, and the best of all training for the young is that 
which compels them, in a great degree, for all personal services 
at least, to depend upon themselves,) the whole labor of the 
farm should be performed by the pupils. This would be, of all 
others, the most effectual way of making them acquainted with 
the subject, and the only way, indeed, in which they can 
become thoroughly acquainted with many of the operations on a 
farm. I am curious to know how this labor is to be had ; 
Y/hether it is to be voluntary or l^y compulsion ; and how, 
among two hundred pupils, it is to be apportioned and equalized. 
If made voluntary, it certainly will not be equally rendered : 
some will not work at all ; and preferences for some kinds of 
work, and distaste for others, which of course must be expected 
to exist, will be found inconvenient. If the labor is made com- 
pulsory, the enforcing of it will not be easy; and it would be 
difficult to find the young men, likely to resort to such a place 
of education, disposed to submit to any arbitrary exactions of 
this nature. How far it is practicable to make it mercenary, and 



ECONOMICAL ARRANGEMENTS AT AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 243 

to reward it by wages, or by a share of the products of such 
labor, is a subject which will require much consideration ; but 
this mode seems to present the only alternative. 

The large number of students — two hundred — to be pro- 
vided for, seems to me to present another serious difficulty in the 
case. If any thing like a military discipline could be introduced 
among them, two thousand might be managed as easily as two 
hundred. As far as concerns their literary or scholastic improve- 
ment, the number presents no impediment in the way of their 
instruction by lectures or recitations ; but when with this is to 
be combined the management of the farm by the personal labor 
of the pupils, a number so large, or indeed half that number, 
must be found exceedingly difficult of management. At the 
Glasnevin school, the boys are regular apprentices to the farmer, 
and their work for certain hours of the day is compulsory. The 
schoolmasters, who come to the farm for instruction, come 
merely as spectators, and put their hands to the work, or not, 
as they please. The whole establishment, if indeed it were four 
times as large as it is, would not, under these circumstances, be 
beyond the personal superintendence of a single efficient man- 
ager. At Templemoyle, the number is limited to seventy, the 
farm is much more extensive than at Glasnevin, and the labor 
for half the day is compulsory. As the pupils are almost 
entirely drawn from the poorest classes, and are persons who 
must depend for their success in life Avholly upon their own 
efforts, they require no other stimulus to exertion. At Ciren- 
cester, the pupils may be divided into two classes — those who 
work, and are allowed in some form a compensation for their 
labor ; and those who are not required or expected to labor, and 
pay an extra price for the exemption. Such an arrangement 
would have many disadvantages, and would be ill adapted to the 
condition of society in the United States. The number of two 
hundred seems to me quite too large, and unmanageable with 
any view to the advantageous application of tlieir labor, if that 
labor is to be voluntary. 

In Scotland, the practical part of farming is learned by young 
men going to reside one or two years, or for a suitable length of 
time, with an intelligent and experienced farmer. In such case, 
the fee paid is about one hundred pounds, or five hundred dollars, 
a year ; and for this the apprentice is received into the family, 



244 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and provided lor at the farmer's table, and every operation on 
the farm is witnessed by him, and explained to him by the 
farmer. In such cases, labor with the pupil is wholly optional. 
Where the farmer is well-skilled and communicative, and the 
pupil capable and interested in the pnrsuit, few arrangements 
are to be preferred — this upon the supposition, however, that 
ni other respects, and previously to his commencing his appren- 
ticeship, he is well grounded in practical science. 

The three things of which I have spoken ought to be viewed 
separately ; but I fear, from the manner in which I have treated 
them, they may appear somewhat confused to my reader's 
mind. 



XXXV. — PLAN OF AN AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTION. 

First, then, in every system of agricultural education, there 
should be an institution for the thorough indoctrination of the 
pupil in natural science, and in mechanical philosophy, so far 
as it can be made to bear upon agriculture. I have already 
treated fully of what, on this topic, should be taught in an insti- 
tution of this nature. 

Secondly, there should be a model farm, which should be 
accessible to the pupils, and where they might see an example 
of the best management, and the best practices in husbandry. 
It is obvious, however, that a single farm can present, excepting 
on a small scale, only a single kind of farming ; and that it 
would be hardly possible to fmd a single locality presenting any 
considerable, or very instructive specimen of the diiferent kinds 
of farming, such as arable, grazing, stock-breeding, stall-feeding, 
sheep-raising, and dairying. But the particular and careful 
observation even of one kind of well-conducted farming would 
qualify a pupil for understanding and receiving information on 
every other, whenever it came in his way, or wherever it might 
be attainable. Stall-feeding is intimately connected and often 
associated with arable farming, and dairying with grazing. TIto 
management of live stock, whether for work, for fatting, or for 
dairying, might, in a small degree, be exemplified on every well- 



PLAN OF AN AGUICULTURAL INSTITUTION. 245 

managed farm. Such an appendage as this to a school of prac- 
tical instruction, where the pupils might see and have explained 
to them the very best modes of husbandry, must be of the 
highest benefit. To these should be added an experimental 
farm. This need not be extensive, and it might be connected 
with the model farm ; indeed, the model farm might itself be, to 
a degree, an experimental farm. It may be said that the pre- 
miums offered by agricultural societies, for various experiments 
in husbandry, are sufficient to meet the public wants in this 
case. I admit that they have in this way rendered immense 
benefits to the public ; but there are still wanted various trials 
and tests of soils, manures, grasses, plants, implements, modes of 
cultivation, modes of feeding, breeding, dairying, — and on the 
effects of temperature, moisture, heat, frost, light, and electricity, 

— which common farmers can scarcely be expected to undertake, 
or, if undertaken, to follow out with that exactness which is 
most desirable, in order to render the results of such experiments 
worthy of confidence, and lessons for general application. 

Connected with the whole should be most extensive gardens, 

— first, for purposes of botanical instruction, giving the pupils 
an opportunity of becoming acquainted with all the principal 
plants, grasses, forest-trees, fruit-trees, and weeds, which enter 
into their cultivation, to the advantage or injury of the farmer : 
and next, for making them thoroughly acquainted (a knowl- 
edge highly important to them) with the cultivation of all the 
varieties of vegetables and fruits which may be required for 
use, profit, or luxury. 

Such is the basis on which I should be glad to see an institu- 
tion for agricultural education rising up in every one of the 
United States, where the condition of society renders it expe- 
dient, and the population is dense enough to sustain it. The 
expensive plan on which it is proposed here to establish and 
conduct such institutions, would be quite unsuited to the state 
of manners and the condition of things in the United States. 
In their economical arrangements, Ireland has set. us an excellent 
example. With us, they might be made in a great measure 
self-supporting. The plan proposed for such an institution, 
some few years since, by the late lamented Judge Buel, who 
had the subject much at heart, involved an expenditure of one 
21* 



24b 



EUROPKAN AORICLLTURE. 



hundred thousand doUars, and might be said to have been 
crushed by its own weight. 

Let us suppose that it were proposed to estabUsh such an 
institution in the western part of New York. Certainly no 
location could, in respect to the external circumstances of soil, 
climate, access, society, and markets, be more favorable. A 
tarm of five hundred acres might be taken, on favorable terms, on 
a long lease. I would under no circumstances suffer the 
number of pupils to exceed one hundred, and perhaps it might 
be expedient to restrict the number much more. Some good- 
sized hall or building would be requisite for public meetings, 
lectures, or recitation-rooms, and for a museum, library, and 
chemical laboratory ; but I would erect no college building for 
the residence of the pupils. They should either lodge in the 
neighborhood, with such farmers as would be willing to receive 
them, or other persons who might be disposed to provide for 
them ; or otherwise, I would erect several farm-houses on the 
place, sufficient to supply the needful accommodations ; but in 
no case should more than fifteen or twenty be lodged in one 
place ; and, whether on the farm or not, the lodging-houses for 
the pupils should be under the constant inspection or regulation 
of the governors or instructors of the institution. One or two 
instructors should be employed constantly for teaching the main 
branches of education, and a competent farmer should be em- 
ployed to manage the agricultural department, and to give the 
necessary practical instruction. Beyond this, no resident instruct- 
ors would be required, — but regular and full courses of lectures 
and experiments in geology, mineralogy, botany, comparative 
anatomy, the veterinary art, and chemistry, by competent pro- 
lessors of these sciences, who might be employed for these 
objects annually, without the necessity and expense of constant 
residence, — as is now frequently done at our medical schools. 
In this way, the best talents in the community might be com- 
manded, and at a reasonable expense. 

I would require, in the next place, that the pupils should be 
placed in a condition of perfect equality, and that a certain 
amount of labor should be made compulsory on all, at such a 
rate of wages as should be deemed just, according to the ability 
of the pupil, and the nature of the work done. An account 



PLAN OF AN AGHICUCTURAI. INSTITUTION. 247 

should be kept for every pupil, and another by every pupil, of 
the labor performed by him, which should be passed to his 
credit. The farm account should be kept with faithful exact- 
ness, and be always open to the inspection of the pupils ; and 
after the deduction of the rent, and the necessary burdens and 
expenses, and some small amount kept as a reserve or accumulat- 
ing fund for the benefit of the institution, the remainder should 
be divided among the pupils according to the labor performed. 

Their board and lodging should be settled for by themselves, 
without any interference on the part of tlie directors of the insti- 
tution, beyond keeping the charges within a stipulated price ; 
and the keepers of the boarding-houses should be required to 
purchase, at reasonable rates, from the farm, whatever supplies 
they might require, which the farm would yield. A tax should 
be levied upon the students for the payment of all the instructors 
and lecturers, and the use of the library, and chemical and phil- 
osophical appai'atus ; and likewise to meet any extraordinary 
experiments made upon the farm, with a view to the instruction 
of the school. Whether it would be advisable for every pupil 
to have an allotment for himself, either for the purpose of 
experiment, or for the profit, and in aid of his subsistence, would 
be worth considering ; remembering always how important it is 
to give to every man an immediate interest in the result of his 
labors. 

Such, in my opinion, is a plan for agricultural education 
which demands no great advance, and involves no risk. But 
the project is even much more feasible than I have already 
stated. Why, for example, should not such an institution be 
connected with the college at Williamstown, or Amherst, in 
Massachusetts, or with Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, 
or Burlington College in Vermont, or the college at Hartford in 
Connecticut, or Geneva in New York, where all the facilities for 
scientific instruction are at hand, residences for the students 
attainable, and suitable farms to be had, either on purchase, or 
lease, at very reasonable rates ? I throw out these liints to my 
countrymen, not with a view of dictating to their superior judg- 
ment, but to show that an institution for a practical and scientific 
education in agriculture may, without any hazardous expend- 
iture, or any large investment, be made almost immediately 
attainable, and under every practicable advantage. 



248 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

A professorship in agriculture is attached to the university in 
Edinburgh, and the chair filled by an eminent professor, Mr. 
Low, who has rendered the most useful public services, in the 
publication of his treatise on agriculture, which is said to 
contain the substance of his lectures at this institution. He has 
likewise established an extensive agricultural museum, contain- 
ing specimens of agricultural productions, and models of the 
various implements used in improved husbandry. The term 
required to complete such a course of education, might be matter 
of after consideration ; but I would advise, in every case, that 
the residence should be absolute, the rules exact and stringent, 
and the annual or occasional examinations as severe as at the 
military school at West Point, so that an equal proficiency might 
be secured. 



XXXVI. — ELEVATION OF AGRICULTURE AS A 
PURSUIT AND A PROFESSION. 

Where it is practicable, I would make the education of a liigh 
and extended character ; and, besides the art of measuring, and 
surveying, and mapping land, I would have the arts of sketching, 
and drawing, and landscape gardening, taught in the institution. 
The pursuit of agriculture is almost universally considered as 
merely a profession of commerce or trade, the farmer looking 
wholly to its pecuniary results. In a trading community, 
pecuniary considerations are always liable to control the judg- 
ment, and predominate over every other consideration. Where 
the means are limited, and the farm must be cultivated as the 
only source of subsistence, pecuniary returns must, of course, be 
the main object. Where, as in England, the cultivator is not 
the owner of the soil, but an annual rent must be paid, and he 
is liable, as in most cases, to be compelled to quit his occupancy 
at the pleasure or the caprice of his landlord, farming must be 
conducted merely as matter of business, and there is no induce- 
ment to pursue the profession as matter of taste or sentiment. 
In many cases in my own country, it must, of necessity, be 



ELEVATION OV AGRICULTURE AS A PURSUIT. 249 

followed wholly as a means of support and of profit, and in some 
cases as a struggle for life. 

But there are innumerable other cases, in which men have the 
power, under the most favorable circumstances, and I am most 
anxious they should have likewise the disposition, to devote 
themselves to it as an elegant and liberal profession, worthy of 
a mind gifted even with the finest taste, and enriched by the 
highest cultivation. The United States present not many 
examples of very great wealth, at least when estimated by the 
standard of wealth which prevails in England, where, indeed, are 
to be found individual accumulations which distance all the 
dreams of Oriental magnificence. But, on the other hand, no 
country upon the globe, and no condition of things since the 
establishment of society, ever presented more favorable oppor- 
tunities than the United States for any one, by active and 
wholesome industry, and a proper frugality, to acquire a com- 
petence, and that respectable independence, in which, with a full 
supply for the necessities of life, and an abundant provision for 
its comforts, there will be found within reach as many of the 
elegances, and ornaments, and luxuries of life, as a well-disci- 
plined and healthful state of mind can require. I have seen too 
frequently such beautiful examples in our country villages, and 
scattered over several parts of a land in many respects favored 
by Heaven above every other, not to be deeply impressed with 
a condition of life which, where its blessings are properly and 
gratefully appreciated, seems to leave little more on earth for a 
rational and reflecting, a benevolent and truly religious mind to 
ask. Happy is it where its waters are not poisoned by an 
insatiate avarice, nor disturbed and thrown into confusion by 
ambition of political office or distinction, or a feverish thirst for 
notoriety and excitement ; but in a quiet, yet not stagnant repose, 
they reflect every where the tokens of that divine goodness, 
which seems in such examples to have poured out its richest 
earthly treasures. Now, I am anxious that agriculture should 
occupy that place among the liberal professions, to which it can 
be raised, and to which, from its importance, it is entitled. But 
this can only be done by improving the education of farmers as 
a class, — by multiplying, through the means of a most liberal and 
extended education, the charms of the country, and the subjects 
of interest which would be constantly more and more developed 



250 EUROPEAN ACRICULTUKE. 

to a cultivated and inquisitive mind ; and by showing that its 
successful pursuit, either as matter of business or recreation, 
where a moderate fortune is possessed or a moderate profes- 
sional income is secured, is not incompatible with the highest 
improvement of taste, and even a vigorous and successful pursuit 
of learning ; and that, where so pursued, under favorable circum- 
stances, it affords as fair a chance of rational enjoyment and 
quiet usefulness as any situation which the most lucrative trade, 
or the most successful political ambition, or even the highest pro- 
fessional eminence, can command. 

But I fear, how much soever I may satisfy the sober and 
reflecting minds on this point, my opinions and persuasions will 
scarcely be heard, and far- less heeded, in that rush for wealth, 
for office, and for notoriety, which, like a torrent sweeping over 
the country, carries every movable object in its course. It 
seems, however, not less my duty to record my strong convic- 
tions, which the experience of a life not short has served only 
to confirm. I see in my own country every where profl'ered to 
an honest industry, a wise frugality, and a wholesome self- 
government, the most ample rewards : I see a wide extent of 
rich and beautiful territory waiting the improving hand of skill 
and labor, to be had in many cases almost for asking, with every 
man free to choose where he will pitch his tent, not only with- 
out injury, but to the advantage of his neighbor : I see the 
means of education, of competence, and of substantial inde- 
pendence, held out to all who will avail themselves of them. 
In the midst of all this, I see thousands and thousands of young 
men, blest with education and fortunes adequate to supply all 
reasonable wants in the country, rushing into cities, exhausting 
their small means in the extravagances and dissipations of fash- 
ionable life ; crowding all the professions to repletion ; pressing 
on, with vexation and disappointment heaped upon vexation and 
disappointment, into all the avenues of political office and dis- 
tinction, and into all the bitter strifes of political controversy ; 
forcing their way into the pursuits of trade without talents for 
their prosecution, and almost sure to involve themselves in bank- 
ruptcy and ruin ; and, in one form and another, dragging on 
through life without satisfaction to themselves and without 
usefulness to others, and too often a ruinous burden upon those 
whom it is now their turn to succor and relieve. I cannot, 



RURAL MANNERS IN ENGLAND. 251 

therefore, help wishing that the pursuits of agriculture might be 
made attractive to such persons ; and that, with education, and 
that moderate fortune which would give them the command of 
the best advantages of rural life, they might find in it, as far as 
rational happiness and humble usefulness are concerned, that 
philosopher's stone which in other places they are almost sure to 
search for in vain. 



XXXVII. — RURAL MANNERS IN ENGLAND. 

England presents many such examples. The true English 
gentleman, living, remote from the din of cities, and abstracted 
from the turmoil of political life, upon his own acres ; managing 
his own estate ; seeking the best means for its improvement, and 
superintending, under his own personal inspection, their applica- 
tion ; doing what good he can to all around him ; making those 
dependent upon him comfortable and contented ; giving labor, 
counsel, encouragement, and all needful aid, to his poor neigh- 
bors, and causing them, and their wives, and their children, to 
look up to him as a friend and a parent, to whose kindness their 
good conduct is always a certain claim ; Avhom when the eye 
sees, it sparkles with grateful joy, and when the ear hears his 
footsteps, the sounds go like melody to the heart ; who is in his 
neighborhood the avowed and unostentatious supporter of good 
morals, temperance, education, peace, and religion ; and in whose 
house you find an open-hearted hospitality, and abundant re- 
sources for imiocent gratification, and for the improvement of 
the mind, with a perfect gentleness of manners, and unaffected 
piety presiding over the whole ; — I say, such a man — and it 
has been my happiness to find many examples — need envy no 
one save the possessor of more power, and a wider sphere, of 
doing good ; and need not covet the brightest triumphs of 
political ambition, nor the splendors and luxuries of royal 
courts. 

Whatever contributes, then, in any way, to elevate the agri- 
cultural profession, to raise it, from a mere servile or mercenary 
labor, to the dignity of a liberal profession, and to commend it 



252 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

not merely for its profit and usefulness, but as a delightful 
resource and recreation for a cultivated mind, will certainly find 
favor with those who form rational views of life, who wish well 
to the cause of good morals, and would multiply and strengthen 
the safeguards of human virtue. 

The class of individuals whom I have described — and I 
assure my readers I have drawn from real life, and deal in no 
fictions — find often their own eiibrts seconded and aided by 
those whose encouragement and sympathy always give new life 
and vigor to their exertions, and new pleasure to their pleasures, 
— I mean their own wives and children; and the farming 
operations, in all their history and details, and all their expe- 
diency and fitness, are as much matter of familiar and interested 
discussion at the fireside, as, in many other circles, the most 
recent novel, the change in fashion, or the latest triumph of 
party. Indeed, I have seen, in many cases, the wives and the 
daughters — and these, too, often persons of the highest rank 
and refinement — as well acquainted with every field and crop, 
their management and their yield, and with every implement 
and animal on the place, as the farmer himself; and I always put 
it down to the credit of their good sense. 



XXXVIII. — A PENCIL SKETCH. 

I must claim the indulgence of my readers, if I give them an 
account of a visit in the country so instructive, so bright, so 
cheerful, that nothing but the absolute breaking-up of the mind 
can ever obliterate its record, or dispel the bright vision from my 
imagination. I know my fair readers — for with some such I 
am assured my humble Reports are kindly honored — will feel 
an interest in it ; and if I have any unfair readers, I beg them at 
once to turn over the page. But mind, I shall utter no name, 
and point to no place ; and if I did not know that the example 
was not altogether singular, and therefore would not be detected, 
I should not relate it. I know very well, as soon as I return to 
my native land, if Heaven has that happiness yet in store for 



A PENCIL SKETCH. 253 

me, a dozen of my charming friends, — God bless them ! — with 
their bright eyes, and their gentle entreaties, will be pressing me 
for a disclosure ; but I tell them beforehand, I am panoplied in a 
stern philosophy, and shall remain immovable. 

I had no sooner, then, entered the house, where my visit had 
been expected, than I was met with an uiiaftected cordiality 
which at once made me at home. In the midst of gilded halls 
and hosts of liveried servants, of dazzling lamps, and glittering 
mirrors, redoubling the highest triumphs of art and taste : in the 
midst of books, and statues, and pictures, and all the elegances 
and refinements of luxury ; in the midst of titles, and dignities, 
and ranks, allied to regal grandeur, — there was one object which 
transcended and eclipsed them all, and showed how much the 
nobility of character surpassed the nobility of rank, the beauty 
of refined and simple manners all the adornments of art, and 
the scintillations of the soul, beaming from the eyes, the purest 
gems that ever glittered in a princely diadem. In person, in 
education and improvement, in quickness of perception, in facility 
and elegance of expression, in accomplishments and taste, in a 
frankness and gentleness of manners tempered by a modesty 
which courted confidence and inspired respect, and in a high 
moral tone and sentiment, which, like a bright halo, seemed to 
encircle the whole person, — I confess the fictions of poetry 
became substantial, and the heau ideal of my youthful imagina- 
tion was realized. 

But who was the person I have described ? A mere statue, to 
adorn a gallery of sculpture ? a bird of paradise, to be kept in a 
glass case ? a mere doll, with painted cheeks, to be dressed and 
undressed with childish fondness? a mere human toy, to lan- 
guish over a romance, or to figure in a quadrille ? Far other- 
wise : she was a woman in all the noble attributes which should 
dignify that name ; a wife, a mother, a housekeeper, a farmer, a 
gardener, a dairy-woman, a kind neighbor, a benefactor to the 
poor, a Christian woman, " full of good works, and alms-deeds 
which she did." 

In the morning, I first met her at prayers ; for, to the honor 
of England, there is scarcely a family, among the hundreds 
whose hospitality I have shared, where the duties of the day are 
not preceded by the services of family worship ; and the master 
and the servant, the parent and the child, the teacher and the 
22 



254 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

taught, the friend and the stranger, come together to recognize 
and strengthen the sense of their common equahty m the 
presence of their common Father, and to acknowledge their 
equal dependence upon his care and mercy. She was then kind 
enough to tell me, after her morning arrangements, she claimed 
me for the day. She first showed me her children, whom, like 
the Roman mother, she deemed her brightest jewels, and 
arranged their studies and occupations for the day. She then 
took me two or three miles on foot to visit a sick neighbor, and, 
while performing this act of kindness, left me to visit some of 
the cottages upon the estate, whose inmates I found loud in the 
praises of her kindness and benefactions. Our next excursion 
was to see some of the finest, and largest, and most aged trees in 
the park, the size of which was truly magnificent ; and I sym- 
pathized in the veneration which she expressed for them, which 
was like that with which one recalls tlie illustrious memory of a 
remote progenitor. Our next visit \vas to the greenhouses and 
the gardens ; and she explained to me the mode adopted there of 
managing the most delicate plants, and of cultivating, in the 
most economical and successful manner, the fruits of a warmer 
region. From the garden we proceeded to the cultivated fields ; 
and she informed me of the system of husbandry pursued on the 
estate, the rotation of crops, the management and application of 
manures, the amount of seed sown, the ordinary yield, and the 
appropriation of the produce, with a perspicuous detail of the 
expenses and results. She then undertook to show me the 
yards and offices, the byres, the feeding-stalls, the plans for 
saving, and increasing, and managing, the manure, the cattle for 
feeding, for breeding, for raising, the milking stock, the piggery, 
the poultry-yard, the stables, the harness-rooms, the implement- 
rooms, the dairy. She explained to me the process of making 
the difierent kinds of cheese, and the general management of the 
milk, and the mode of feeding the stock ; and then, conducting 
me into the bailiffs house, she exhibited to me the Farm Jour- 
nal, and the whole systematic mode of keeping the accounts and 
making the returns, with which she seemed as familiar as if they 
were the accounts of her own wardrobe. This did not finish 
our grand tour ; for, on my return, she admitted me into her 
boudoir, and showed me the secrets of her own admirable house- 
wifery, in the exact accounts which she kept of every thing 



A PENCIL SKKTUII. 255 

connected with the dairy and the market, the table, the drawing- 
room, and the servants' haU. All this was done with a sini- 
phcity and a frankness which showed an absence of all con- 
sciousness of any extraordinary merit in her own department, 
and which evidently sprang solely from a kind desire to gratify 
a curiosity on my part, which, I hope, under such circumstances, 
was not unreasonable. A short hour after this brouglit us into 
another relation ; for the dinner-bell summoned us, and this same 
lady was found presiding over a brilHant circle of the highest 
rank and fashion, with an ease, elegance, wit, intelligence, and 
good-humor, with a kind attention to every one's wants, and an 
unaffected concern for every one's comfort, which would lead 
one to suppose that this was her only and her peculiar sphere. 
Now, I will not say how many mud-puddles we had waded 
through, and how many dung-heaps we had crossed, and what 
places we explored, and how every farming topic was discussed; 
but I will say, that she pursued her object without any of that 
fastidiousness and affected delicacy which pass with some 
persons for refinement, but which in many cases indicate a 
weak if not a corrupt mind. The mind which is occupied with 
concerns and subjects that are worthy to occupy it, thinks very 
little of accessories which are of no importance. I will say, to 
the credit of Englishwomen, — I speak, of course, of the upper 
classes, — that it seems impossible that there should exist a more 
delicate sense of propriety than is found universally among 
them ; and yet you will ])erceive at once that their good sense 
teaches them that true delicacy is mucli more an element of the 
mind, in the person who speaks or observes, than an attribute of 
the subject which is spoken about or observed. A friend told 
me that Canova assured him that, in modelling the wonderful 
statue of the Three Graces, from real life, he was never at any 
time conscious of an improper emotion or thought ; and if any 
man can look at this splendid production, this affecting imbodi- 
ment of a genius almost creative and divine, with any other 
emotion than that of the most profound and respectful admira- 
tion, he may well tremble for the utter corruption, within him, 
of thai moral nature Avhich God designed should elevate him 
above the brute creation. 

Now, I do not say that the lady to whom I have referred was 
herself the manager of the f\\rm ; that rested entirely wMth her 



256 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

husband ; but I have intended simply to show how grateful and 
gratifying to him must have been the Uvely interest and sym- 
pathy which she took in concerns which necessarily so much 
engaged his time and attention ; and how the country could be 
divested of that dulness and ennui, so often complained of as 
inseparable from it, when a cordial and practical interest is taken 
in the concerns which necessarily belong to rural life. I meant 
also to show — as this and many other examples which have 
come under my observation emphatically do show — that an 
interest in, and a familiarity with, even the most humble occu- 
pations of agricultural life, are not inconsistent with the highest 
refinements of taste, the most improved cultivation of the mind, 
the practice of the polite accomplishments, and a grace, and 
elegance, and dignity of manners, unsurpassed in the highest 
circles of society. 



XXXIX. — LIFE IN THE COUNTRY. 

To live in the country, and enjoy all its pleasures, we should 
love the country. To love the country is to take an interest in 
all that belongs to the country — its occupations, its sports, its 
culture, and its improvements, its fields and its forests, its trees 
and rocks, its valleys and hills, its lakes and rivers ; to gather 
the flocks around us, and feed them from our own hands ; to 
make the birds our friends, and call them all by their names ; to 
wear a chaplet of roses as if it were a princely diadem ; to rove 
over the verdant fields with a higher pleasure than we should 
tread the carpeted halls of regal courts ; to inhale the fresh air 
of the morning as if it were the sweet breath of infancy ; to 
brush the dew from the glittering fields as if our path were 
strewed with diamonds ; to hold converse with the trees of the 
forest, in their youth and in their decay, as if they could tell us 
the history of their own times, and as if the gnarled baric of the 
aged among them were all written over with the record of by- 
gone days, of those who planted tliem, and those who early 
gathered their fruits ; to find hope and joy bursting like a flood 
upon our liearts, as the darting rays of light gently break upon 



VLTKRINARY COLLEGE. 257 

the eastern horizon ; to see the descending sun robing himself in 
burnished clouds, as if these were the gathering glories of the 
divine throne ; to find in the clear evening of winter our 
chamber studded with countless gems of living light ; to feel 
that " we are never less alone than when alone ; " to make even 
the stillness and solitude of the country eloquent ; and above all, 
in the beauty of every object which presents itself to our senses, 
and in the unbought provision which sustains, and comforts, and 
fills with joy, the countless multitudes of living existences which 
people the land, the water, the air, every where to repletion, to 
see the radiant tokens of an infinite and inexhaustible benefi- 
cence, as they roll by us and around us in one ceaseless flood ; 
and in a clear and bright day of summer, to stand out in the 
midst of this resplendent creation, circled by an horizon which 
continually retreats from our advances, holding its distance 
undiminished, and with the broad and deep blue arches of 
heaven over us, whose depths no human imagination can fathom ; 
to perceive this glorious temple all instinct with the presence of 
the Divinity, and to feel, amidst all this, the brain growing dizzy 
with wonder, and the heart swelling with an adoration and a 
iioly joy, absolutely incapable of utterance ; — this it is to love 
the country, and to make it. not the homo of the person only, but 
of the soul. 



XL. — VETERINARY COLLEGE. 

I must not quit the subject of agricultural education v/ithout 
adverting to some other institutions of great importance. The 
first of these is the Veterinary College, near London. I believe 
there is one of a similar character near Edinburgh ; but that I 
have not visited. 

The object of this institution was to qualify persons, by the 
study of comparative anatomy and physiology, and by oppor- 
tunities for witnessing hospital practice and investigating the 
symptoms and phenomena of disease in the lower animals, to 
practise veterinary surgery and medicine ; and to do what can 
be done, by skill and science, for the relief of the sufljerings and 
22* ' 



258 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the cure of the maladies of quadrupeds of all kinds — horses, cattle, 
sheep, dogs, &c. For this purpose, a number of gentlemen 
associated, and, by a subscription for life of twenty guineas each, 
or an annual payment of two guineas, laid the foundation of this 
excellent and humane establishment. An extensive plot of 
ground, about three miles from the centre of London, was 
obtained, and the necessary buildings — consisting of stables and 
loose boxes; long piazzas for the purpose of giving the patients 
exercise in bad weather under cover ; a room for lectures and 
dissections, and for a museum of anatomical preparations : and 
specimens of diseased organization, and a forge for shoeing, 
together with apartments for the resident professor, and for the 
accommodation of the servants of the establishment — have been 
erected ; and already nearly or quite a thousand pupils have 
received diplomas or certificates of their qualifications for 
practice, and have gone to the business of their profession in 
dilTerent parts of the kingdom, in the army, and in foreign 
countries. 

Subscribers to the establishment have the privilege of sending 
their horses, or diseased animals, to the institution, without any 
other expense than the actual cost of their food ; but no animal 
can be admitted which is not the property of either an annual or a 
permanent subscriber. The horses of subscribers are sometimes 
prescribed for at their own stables, when it is inconvenient to 
send them, provided tire medicines are compounded at the 
college. In case the disease of an animal is pronounced des- 
perate, the owner, upon paying the expenses already incurred, 
may surrender him to the college ; and if, by any treatment 
which they may see fit to adopt, the animal is recovered, the 
owner may have him again by paying the additional expenses 
since his surrender, or he will be considered the property of the 
college. Horses likewise may be shod at the forge of the 
college at the customary charges. Subscribers likewise, at a 
distance, have the privilege of procuring any medicines or drugs, 
which may be required, compounded at the college, and fur- 
nished at the actual cost. 

A principal and an adjunct professor of veterinary science and 
practice, men eminent for their knowledge and skill, preside over 
the institution, and give regular courses of lectures and examina- 
tions ; and the number of patients in the infirmary is generally 



VETERINARY COLLEGE. 259 

such as to afford the students an opportunity of seemg a consid- 
erable variety of practice, especially among horses, to which 
hitherto the practice has been mainly confined. Besides this, 
through the liberality of the professors of the Medical College, 
the students at the Veterinary Institution have an opportunity 
of attending the medical and anatomical lectures gratuitously 
at these institutions ; and, to guard, as far as possible, against 
ignorance and incompetency, no student can receive the diploma 
or recommendation of the institution to practise, until he has 
passed a regular and thorough examination, and has been found 
qualified for the duty. 

This is a most excellent institution. In an economical view, 
it is highly important ; for the amount of property in live stock 
is every where very great ; and here, where, as in several estab- 
lishments kept by a single individual, there are twenty and 
thirty, and sometimes forty horses for hunting, and in other 
cases as many more for racing, — and where, as in several cases 
within my knowledge, packs of dogs, of very great original cost, 
are kept at an expense of from fifteen hundred to two thousand 
pounds, or from seven thousand to ten thousand dollars, a year, 
and in many cases more than that, — it is easy to see what a 
large amount of property is at stake, and to what care it is 
entitled. I have been at one or two establishments where the 
horses in the stables, exclusive of horses for farm work, amount- 
ed to sixty or eighty. The large number of cavalry horses 
belonging to the army render the services of a veterinary sur- 
geon, in such establishments, of indispensable importance. 

Surgery, as an art, has been carried to great perfection ; and in 
some circumstances hardly any thing more seems wanting than 
actually to breathe into some of the artificial anatomical prepara- 
tions the Promethean fire, and set the circulations in motion. 
Medicine, indeed, presents but few infallible remedies, but some- 
thing has been done ; and if comparatively little has been accom- 
plished by physic, yet much has been done by a curative treat- 
ment and regimen. I am aware that it is quite customary to 
say of many novel, and certainly very gentle modes of treatment, 
of recent date, that the patients are cured by the imagination ; 
and this is as agreeable a mode of cure as bloodletting, or 
powerful doses of calomel and jalap, or the exciting operation of 
Spanish flies. It is obvious, however, that, until we make 



260 EUROPEAN AGPaCULTURE. 

much further progress in phrenological science, we can do little 
by apphcations to the imaginations of horses or dogs. But, 
whatever imperfection attaches itself to medical science, some- 
thing at least may be gained from it ; and it certainly presents 
the only practicable and probable means of learning the nature 
of disease, and combating its power. At any rate, medical 
science, and a thorough medical education, seem to aflbrd the 
t)nly substantial secmity against the evils of empiricism or 
quackery ; and, to say nothing of experiments upon the human 
organism, I have myself seen, under the pretence of remedy or 
cure, such horrible cruelties practised upon dumb animals, as 
have filled me with indignation, and have made me indulge the 
inhuman wish of changing places with the operator — of putting 
him in the position of his unhappy patient, and of being allowed 
to try some of his prescriptions upon himself. If they answered, 
well ; but, in many cases. I think he would soon be past answer- 
ing at all. The public have reason to congratulate themselves 
that medical practice is now every where assuming the character 
of prevention rather than of cure ; and that the truly respectable 
part of the profession, drojipmg that profoimd air of mystery 
with which they formerly were accustomed to wrap themselves 
up, and which made one tremble in their presence almost as 
much as in the presence of the original professor of the black art. 
now prefer the more simple to the more artificial practice. 
They seem to be fast learning that Nature, like others of the 
sex, may be persuaded, but not forced; may be kindly led, but 
woe be to the man who attempts to drive her ; and that, in 
truth, the great object of medicine is, not to give health, but to 
remove disease ; to clean and adjust the machinery, and then it 
will go right of itself, barring accidents, as long as it is intended 
to go at all. 

1 have already spoken of tlie importance of the veterinary art 
in an economical view. A frightful disease has for some time 
prevailed among the cattle in England, Ireland, and the Con- 
tinent. I met with one farmer who assured me that he had lost 
by it, in one season, ninety-seven cattle, and he feared his whole 
herd might perish with it, for he could find no remedy. Now. 
there is no hope of any remedy but from the investigations of 
medical skill and science. We want men, therefore, who by 
education are ipialified for, and willing to devote themselves to. the 



VETERINARY COLLEGE. 261 

inquiry into the causes and means of prevention of such direful 
calamities. The epidemic still prevails in England and on the 
Continent ; and application has been made to the government to 
check the importation of foreign cattle, lest they should assist 
in the spread of the disease. Indeed, numbers of cattle are 
almost every week, as I have reason to believe, brought to 
Smithfield in such a state of disease as to be fit for no other 
purpose — and for this they are actually bought — but to make 
sausages for the poor Londoners. I hardly dare say that this is 
not to be complained of; but when one sees the extreme and 
indescribable misery and destitution of many of these poor 
wretches, apparently irremediable and hopeless, one almost 
hesitates, in sad desperation, to lament a mode of disposing 
of them after the Napoleon example of the treatment of his 
sick prisoners at Jaffa. I almost tremble while I write upon 
such a subject as this. It is indispensable to see, in order to 
believe. I have had the painful, I hope not improper, curiosity 
to penetrate many of these subterranean hiding-places and dens 
of misery ; and it is my sober conviction that the human imagi- 
nation cannot exaggerate the physical suffering, and, too com- 
monly consequent upon that, the moral degradation in which 
many thousands, in this glorious and prosperous country, di'ag 
out their wretched existence. But I advocate the establishment 
of veterinary institutions, and the cultivation of veterinary med- 
icine, on the broad ground of humanity ; and I hope many such 
institutions will grow up in America, and that speedily. It is 
remarkable that, in the disease of one of our domestic animals, 
medical science has discovered the only effectual preventive for 
one of the most dreadful scourges which, in the form of disease, 
ever afflicted mankind. I refer, of course, to vaccination. 

But these animals have bones to ache, and nerves to feel, as 
well as ourselves. They furnish our support ; they perform our 
labors ; they promote our pleasures ; they are patient, enduring, 
and indefatigable, in our service. Has not God cast them upon 
our care, and put them under our protection ? What a respon- 
sibility ! Shall it be said that those who have no voice to speak 
for themselves, shall find no one to speak for them ? What if 
they have no moral nature ? Then they have not the vices of 
animals of a superior class, who, dishonoring, perverting, and 
outraging, that moral nati.re, degrade themselves far below the 



262 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. 

class of beings guided only by instinctive impulses. It is said 
of the great emperor, that his heart was never more touched, if 
heart indeed he had, than on a certain occasion, when, three 
days after a sanguinary battle, when human victims were immo- 
lated to his dreadful ambition by thousands, riding over a field 
thickly strewed with the dying and the dead, he found a faithful 
dog lying by the side and licking the bleeding wounds of his 
dying master. The noble dog of St. Bernard, dragging the 
perishing traveller from the snow-drift to the hospitable convent, 
for warmth and comfort, and the poor spaniel dying with slow 
starvation upon the grave of his master, and refusing to be led 
away or to be comforted, are pictures of heroism and fidelity 
worthy of a place at the side of that of Regulus, deaf to the 
entreaties of his family, taking leave of the senate on his return 
to fulfil his pledge, or that of the Grecian daughter nourishing 
her father in prison. 

Humanity calls upon us to alleviate suff'ering, wherever suf- 
fering exists. I wish that veterinary instruction was connected 
with all our medical schools, and made an indispensable branch 
of study. We try all kinds of experiments upon these helpless 
animals for the benefit of science, and science should do some- 
thing to repay the debt, by attempting, in every practicable form, 
to alleviate the sufferings of the race. In the country, a medical 
practitioner, who would add veterinary skill and practice to his 
other services, would confer immense benefits. It is lamentable 
that, by a false standard of moral duty, such an office should be 
thought degrading. In many cases, it might subject him to 
painful and thankless services ; but the life of every benevolent 
physician is full of such services, and he has only to thank God 
that he has the power of doing so much good, often at so little 
cost. So far from such a practice being degrading, the physician 
who would be willing to render such services would be worthy 
of double honor ; for tlie more humble, the meaner, the more 
friendless the sufferer, proportionately is the glory of the kindness 
enhanced. There is no reason, however, why such services 
should be gratuitous, and in many situations it would form a 
profitable branch of practice. 



MUSEUM OF ECONOMIC GKOLOGY. 263 



XLL — MUSEUM OF ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 

This is a most valuable establishment, in the centre of Lon- 
don. Its whole object is utility, and principally in rendering 
geological discoveries subservient to the promotion of the useful 
and ornamental arts. It is a most singular, but a well-estab- 
lished fact, that the mineral treasures dug from the mines, in the 
islands of Great Britain, amount to the enormous sum of twenty 
million pounds sterling per year, or one hundred million of 
dollars, — of which eight million pounds, or forty million of dol- 
lars, are of iron, and nine million pounds, or forty-five million of 
dollars, of coal. It is easy to see what a vast interest is at stake 
in these matters. In another form, I hope to be able to give 
some account of a visit which I made to one of these immense 
excavations, where I descended, by a ladder, seven hundred feet, 
and then groped my way through various crevices, and chambers, 
and shafts, a distance of perhaps two miles under ground. I am 
disposed to think it would be misplaced in an agricultural report, 
where I am afraid my friends will already find too many things 
out of place. I can only, in this matter, throw myself upon the 
indulgence of my readers, and remind them of the variety of 
tastes and appetites which I am compelled to consult. If, in 
spite of all this, a bill of indictment should be brought against 
me for making my Reports too miscellaneous, I shall at once 
allow a plea of guilty to be recorded, and throw myself upon the 
mercy of the court. I am indeed, in this way, an old ofl'ender, 
and I cannot express the gratitude which I feel for the mercy I 
have so often experienced. 

The Museum of Economic Geology, though not founded 
principally for the benefit of agricultural science, is yet made 
subsidiary to this object. The geological structure of any por- 
tion of the earth's surface seems intimately related to the nature 
of the soil which rests upon it; so that, from knowing the 
structure of the rocky substratum of a country, you can infer 
strongly its fertility or its infertility, or the adaptation of its soil 
to various crops. The general opinion is, that all soils are 
formed from the crumbling or detrition of rocks, mixed with 
some vegetable or organic matter. This is the received theory. 



264 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

but it is not without its difficulties. I have no disposition to 
controvert it, for a man who battles with the stones is quite sure 
to have the worst of it. The original form of the earth is 
wrapped in impenetrable obscurity. Science is doing every 
thing she can to unfold the leaves of this wonderful book ; but 
where they have been most successfully separated and ex- 
pounded, they are found so scratched, and torn, and blurred all 
over, that the letters are with extreme difficulty made legible. 
We soon learn that it was a much earlier specimen of printing 
than has been generally supposed, and some of it in a language 
that is lost. It does not appear to me more certain that the 
rocks were first formed, and then portions of them reduced to 
such a fine state of comminution as to form soils, than that the 
earth was originally in a state of fine atoms, and then, by the 
operation of fire, and water, and pressure from within and with- 
out, amidst violent terrene convulsions, rocks were formed, and 
the various strata arranged. It would seem not improbable 
that, from the earliest period of the reduction of its temperature 
to a degree that vegetable life could exist upon it, vegetable life 
appeared ; and by successive convulsions this vegetable life 
itself became overwhelmed, and was transformed into those 
immense beds of fossil deposits which occupy so large a portion 
of the surface, or upper portion, of the globe. How afterwards 
such vast deposits of earth took place over these beds of vege- 
table remains, can be explained only by some immense and 
utterly inexplicable convulsion and disruption of portions of the 
earth. It is admitted that the character of the soil often bears a 
direct relation to the rocks which it overlays, and evidently a 
considerable portion of it is formed from the detritus of these 
subjacent rocks ; but the vast amount of drift or diluvium scat- 
tered over the earth's surface, and often at immense distances 
from places where, upon the common theory, it is supposed to 
have been formed, shows that the geological indications above 
referred to are not infallible. 

The Museum of Economic Geology is intended to exhibit 
specimens of various soils from the different localities in the 
country, with illustrations, as far as they can be obtained, of 
their peculiar adaptation to agricultural purposes ; and connected 
with the museum is a chemical laboratory for the analysis of 
soils which may have already been obtained, or which may be 



CHEMICAL AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION IN SCOTLAND. 265 

brought by farmers or laud-owners for that purpose. The 
museum is open to the gratuitous inspection of the pubhc, and 
is clearly the germ of an institution of great magnitude and 
importance. The establishment is at present under the manage- 
ment of Mr. Richard Phillips, F. R. S., a man deservedly emi- 
nent for his skill in chemistry and natural science, to whose 
indefatigable kindness I should do great injustice to my own 
grateful feelings if I did not here record my deep sense of obli- 
gation. 



XLII. — CHEMICAL AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION IN 
SCOTLAND. 

The farmers in Scotland, certainly inferior to none in agri- 
cultural enterprise, intelligence, and skill, and demonstrating this 
by a husbandry most exact and productive, have associated 
themselves together for the encouragement of the application of 
chemistry to the improvement of agriculture. Proprietors of 
land pay a yearly subscription of one pound or upwards to the 
association, and tenants ten shillings. This sum entitles each 
of them to two analyses a year at a certain fixed low rate. All 
above that number are charged half more. The analyst is 
required to give only such analysis as will answer the desired 
purpose. Agricultural societies, by a yearly payment of five 
pounds to the association, are entitled to one lecture from the 
agricultural professor ; for ten pounds, to two lectures, and so 
on ; and the travelling expenses of the lecturer are likewise to 
be paid by those who employ him. 

The society, more than a year since, proceeded to appoint, at 
a liberal salary, Mr. F. W. S. Johnston, an agricultural lecturer 
and chemist, to the office of chemist and lecturer to the associa- 
tion ; and a chemical laboratory and depository are established 
and in full operation at Edinburgh. Mr. Johnston is well known 
to the agricultural community by his valuable works on agricul- 
tural chemistry, some of which have been reprinted in the United 
States, and in both countries have had a very extended circula- 
tion. The success of the association, it is reported, has been 
23 



266 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



such as to satisfy the original subscribers of its utiHty. It has 
led, through the lectures of the professor, to the establishment 
of several agricultural periodicals, and has throughout Scotland 
infused new spirit into the veins of the agricultural body, and 
quickened its pulse. One of the most substantial benefits as yet 
resulting from it has been the analytical examination of ninety 
difierent specimens of guano imported into Scotland ; and that 
to secure the farmers from impositions, which, in cases before 
this, have not been infrequent. 

After the remarks which I have made in a former part of my 
Report, it certainly is only just that I should subjoin the analysis 
made at this place of two soils from Renfrewshire, with the 
results of the application prescribed for them. 



" Organic matter, . , . . . 
Salts soluble in water ; sulphates, 

Oxide of iron, 

Manganese, 

Alumina, 

Magnesia, 

Phosphoric acids, .... 
Silicious matter and clay, . 



I. 

Per cent. 

12.05 
1.23 
5.73 
0.19 
4.69 

trace. 

trace. 

74.67 

98.56 



II. 

Per cent. 

10.43 

0.75 

10.78 
0.24 
2.87 

trace. 

trace. 

73.21 

98.28 



" But a mere trace of magnesia and phosphoric acid was found 
in cither of these soils. It was therefore recommended to add 
to both of them the magnesia in the state of sulphate, and the 
phosphoric acid as bone-earth. The effect has been most won- 
derful and striking." — The letter with which I have been 
favored adds, "None of the analyses I have given are very 
elaborate, but they are sufficiently so for practical purposes, and 
they do not confuse or mystify the farmer with hard names." 

I had the pleasure of visiting this institution, and there was 
certainly no want of the indications of industry. I have only to 
regret that my friend's account of his two patients above is so 
short and imperfect. I should be glad to have been able to 
inform my readers what was the exact condition of the patients 
before taking the prescription, and their particular state of health 
after it. 



CHEMICAL AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 267 



XLIII. — CHEMICAL AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 

During the last vviutcr, a course of ten lectures, illustrated by 
numerous experiments, was given by Professor Brande, F. R. S., 
well known in the scientific world, oji the chemistry of agri- 
culture, at the rooms of the Royal Institution, — which, through 
his politeness, I had the pleasure of attending. They might be 
considered as almost wholly scientific, and were exceedingly 
interesting and instructive. Mr. Brande spoke of himself as 
having been a pupil or associate of the distinguished Sir 
Humphry Davy, who lectured on the same subjects in this same 
institution, and who may be said to have taken the first step in 
the great movement, which is now so widely felt, of the applica- 
tion of science, properly so called, to agriculture. 

Professor Brande's lectures were numerously attended, by 
ladies as well as gentlemen. Several of the ladies were always 
busy in taking notes of the lectures. I felt the highest respect 
for them on this account ; and if I had been, as is said among 
the clergy, " a candidate for settlement," with my strong pred- 
ilections for agricultural pursuits, I might have been tempted to 
inquire about some of them, whose high and capacious foreheads 
gave a noble indication of what was within, whether they also 
were in the transition state. Certainly here, as well as any 
where, I may claim for an American woman the honor of pre- 
senting from her own pen an excellent translation, from the 
French, of Chaptal's Agricultural Chemistry, to the American 
public. Her name is modestly withheld from the title-page, 
and therefore I have no right to give it. 

I shall give below a syllabus of Professor Brande's lectures on 
these occasions, because I so strongly wish the example should 
be followed in my own country. 

1st. Lecture. The Soil. — Its components ; whence derived. 
— Inorganic Constituents of the Soil. Silica ; alumina ; lime ; 
magnesia ; oxide of iron ; alkalies ; phosphorus ; sulphur ; salts ; 
water ; decay of rocks ; sand ; clay ; marl ; chalk ; other simple 
soils. — Organic Constituents. Humus or humic acid ; their 
influences and uses. Absorptive power in regard to air, water, 



268 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and gases. Radiating and receptive powers in respect to solai* 
rays. Various physical conditions of the soil. 

II. The Atmosphere. — Its composition ; invariable and va- 
riable constituents. Influence of the moisture, carbonic acid, 
and ammonia, of the atmosphere. 

III. The Vegetable. — Its Ultimate Constituents, and their 
sources ; carbon ; oxygen ; hydrogen ; nitrogen. The sources 
and importance of the so-called inorganic constituents of the 
vegetable ; acids ; alkalies ; oxides ; salts. — Proximate Con- 
stituents of the vegetable ; sap ; wood ; starch ; sugar ; gum. 
Their metamorphoses ; gluten ; albumen ; fibrine ; caseine ; 
legumine ; proteine ; resins ; oils ; acids ; alkalies ; fermentation ; 
eremacausis ; putrefaction. 

IV. Functions and Growth of Vegetables. — Germination ; 
general organization of vegetables ; roots ; trunk ; branches ; 
leaves ; flowers ; buds ; functions of the roots and of the leaves. 

V. Principles of the Improvement of Soils. — Mechanical, 
as influencing texture ; chemical, as influencing composition 
manures, of inorganic, organic, and mixed origin. Draining ; 
ploughing ; burning ; irrigation ; green crops ; interchange of 
crops ; fallows. 

I make no apology for giving to my readers this instructive 
syllabus in full. It is said of Queen Elizabeth that, being 
asked by one of her maids of honor for a book to read, she gave 
her an English dictionary. The lady presently returned it to 
her majesty with many thanks, and stated '' that she had been 
much interested in the perusal." There was more wisdom in 
this reply than at first appears. To say nothing of its conve- 
nience, yet I have often found a copious index, or a well-digested 
table of contents, an interesting and instructive portion of a book. 



XLIV. — EMPLOYMENT OF AGRICULTURISTS. 

In the technical sense of the term, agriculturist means a 
teacher of agriculture. Under the excellent management of 



EMPLOYMENT OF AGRICLLTLRI3T3. 269 

William Blacker, Esq., on the estate of Lord Gosford, in the 
county of Armagh, Ireland, an experienced and intelligent man. 
well skilled in communicating his ideas, is employed to visit the 
tenants on the property, to advise them in regard to the manage- 
ment and cultivation of their small farms, and to encourage them 
by some small premiums, and by reporting their condition and 
success to the principal manager. The occupations in these 
cases are very small, often not exceeding three, four, and six 
acres. As I understood Mr. Blacker, he has the care of twenty- 
five hundred tenants on the property of this nobleman. This 
lumiber, I confess, seems very extraordinary ; but the subdi- 
visions on the place are quite small and numerous. I shall, on 
another occasion, give a particular account of Mr. Blacker's 
excellent management of small farms, because it is full of useful 
instruction, and does the highest honor to his judgment, perse- 
verance, and benevolence. At present, I speak only of the 
employment of an agriculturist, which has been attended with 
the best effects. This person lives on the estate, and has a 
small amount of land in the neighborhood of his own house, 
which he is expected to keep in the best possible order, accord- 
ing to the system which he lays down for others, — so that he 
is called upon to teach by example as well as precept. 

The same arrangement has been made, at the suggestion of 
Mr. Blacker, on the farm of Lady Bassett, near Camborne, in 
Cornwall, which I had the pleasure to visit. Here, too, it works 
well. The farmers in Cornwall hold larger farms than in 
Armagh, and therefore have a higher idea of their own impor- 
tance. They were at first very jealous of the direct approaches 
of the agriculturist to advise and instruct them. But by a little 
addi'ess, and by especially avoiding any thing like dogmatism or 
self-conceit, and by a frank manner convincing the farmers that 
he was disinterestedly seeking their good, his success is becom- 
ing remarkable, and he is every day gaining upon their 'esteem 
and confidence. A horse, loose in a pasture, can rarely be 
caught if you approach him swinging the bridle, the emblem of 
his subjugation, before his eyes ; but if you go to him shaking 
only the measure of oats before him, and concealing the bridle 
under your coat, you can generally take him without difficulty, 
I am no advocate for treachery under any form ; but where the 
object aimed at is unexceptionable and excellent, I see no occa- 
23* 



270 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

sion lor unnecessarily alarming the prejudices of those whom wc 
wish to serve, or for awakening resistance by command, when 
we can easily enforce acquiescence by persuasion. 

That the plan is sure to work well where the class of tenants, 
as in Armagh, are very small tenants, and ignorant withal, is 
quite plain ; but farmers on a large scale would be likely to 
reject any direct interference. Yet these men often need 
instruction. The knowledge of improvements, in some cases, 
extends itself by slow degrees : oral instruction, coupled with 
familiar illustrations, is always more interesting than books ; and 
the employment of an agricultural missionary, of unobtrusive 
and kind manners, and perfectly competent to impart instruction, 
to visit a district of country, that he might point out errors and 
defects of cultivation, and explain the best modes of husbandry 
adapted to the climate and locality, would prove a most power- 
ful means of awakening attention to the subject, of reforming 
errors, and introducing desirable and substantial improvements. 



XLV. — GUANO. 

Having now completed what I designed to say upon the pro- 
vision for agricultural education in Great Britain, I shall beg the 
indulgence of my readers in reverting to a topic of a different 
character, and which, in a more methodical arrangement, would 
have had a place in a different part of my work. A strong and 
impatient desire has been expressed that I should give what 
information I possess on the subject of the recently-introduced 
and most extraordinary manure called giiann : and I therefore 
speak of it in this place. 

I do not deem it necessary to go into the history of a sub- 
stance which has been made so familiar by the public discus- 
sions which have taken place in relation to it. That it is an 
animal deposit, is well established. It is the excrement of sea- 
birds accustomed to frequent certain islands in the Pacific Ocean 
and other places in the tropical latitudes. Its use as a manure 
is not new in those covuitries where it has been found. In Peru, 



GUANO. 271 

the birds who caused the deposit were protected by severe laws, 
and the value of the manure was fully understood. The amount 
of the accumulations, considering the nature of the deposit, is 
immense, being represented, by travellers, as from three to seven 
hundred feet in depth. The number of birds is stated to be 
almost beyond calculation ; and any person who will take the 
trouble to read, in that delightful book, Wilson's Ornithology, 
the accounts of the roosting-places of the passenger-pigeon in 
some of the Western States of America, will readily confide in 
well-authenticated accounts of the number of these birds, which 
would otherwise be deemed egregious exaggerations. To the 
gentlemen in England who are fond of w'hat is termed a battue, 
a voyage to the Pacific to shoot the guano birds would afford 
excellent sport ; and if in such case they would bring back loads 
of this valuable manure, it might not prove an unprofitable enter- 
prise, and they would perform a double work of conciliation to 
the farmers. Their accounts of one or two days' shooting, or 
knocking down the birds with the butt-ends of their guns, 
would be read here with the greatest avidity, and eclipse all 
their former exploits of Ivilling hundreds of game in a single day 
where the beaters were employed to drive them directly under 
the muzzles of their guns, and where occasionally they are 
obliged to knock dov/n a poacher instead of a penguin. 

These deposits are made in a climate where, for a considerable 
part of the year, little rain falls, and where the intense heat of 
the sun forms such a crust over the deposit, that it becomes 
almost insoluble. Supposing a deposit to be made of two inches 
a year, for three thousand years, this would give a depth of five 
hundred feet ; and therefore the report of (he depth of these 
deposits, though surprising, is by no means intrinsically incred- 
ible. The extraordinary cftect of this manure is another remark- 
able circumstance. The dung of the domestic pigeon or fowl is 
among the strongest used, but it is not so powerful as guano. 
In the excrements of birds, the solid and liquid portions are 
combined. This is one secret of their strength. In the case of 
the guano birds, their food is wholly fish, and not, as with our 
domestic birds, mainly farinaceous ; and therefore it abounds in 
nitrogen, and in bony substances, or phosphates. 

The secret of the extraordinary success of this manure is not 
yet solved, however nearly a solution may have been approx- 



272 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

imated. This is evident from the fact that, after the most exact 
and minute analysis of this manure, conducted with all the skill 
and science which can be brought to bear upon it, no one has 
been able to form an artificial guano with any degree of its 
efficacy. Chemistry determines with wonderful accuracy its 
inorganic properties ; but fifty per cent, of it is organic matter, 
and this being dissipated or lost in the process of analysis, noth- 
ing is known of it but its absolute quantity. Every common 
farmer knows that horse manure, cow manure, hog manure, 
sheep manure, are all specifically different, and their effects and 
uses are different ; and I believe this depends not more upon a 
difference in their inorganic elements, than upon some specific 
effects of their organic elements ; and though horses, and cows, 
and sheep, should be fed upon precisely the same food, their 
excrementitious matter would be specifically different, and the 
effects upon vegetation different. I pretend not to say in what 
this difference consists ; this, chemistry has not yet reached, 
though I can but hope the goal will presently be attained. I 
am not therefore entirely satisfied with any account which 
chemistry has given of guano, so far as its operation is concerned. 
It has done much, and is clearly able to determine the different 
specific values of different samples. This is of great importance 
to the farmer, and not less so to the honest dealer. But the 
specific qualities of this extraordinary manure, as proved by its 
effects, are, I presume to believe, with all possible respect for 
science, yet to be discovered. I know the consequences of ques- 
tioning the infallibility of the pope, but I am no Catholic. 

One, indeed, may well speak of its effects as extraordinary, 
from what I myself have seen. In Scotland, last autumn, two 
shrubs were shown to me, sweet-briers, growing in front of a 
two-story house, and trained upon its sides ; one at one, the 
other at the other end. The soil in which they grew, the 
aspect, and other circumstances, were the same. One, in the 
season, had grown six or seven feet ; the other, nearly thirty 
feet ! It had actually climbed to the roof of the house, and 
turned and hung down, reaching half the distance down from 
the roof to the ground. I judged this could not have been less 
than thirty feet. This had been repeatedly watered with liquid 
guano, by the hands of its fair cultivator ; for this was another 
experiment by a lady, (which I hope my American friends will 



GUANO. 273 

bear in mind.) The otlier had received no special care or 
manuring. This charming woman, surrounded by her lovely 
children, was equally engaged in teaching the young idea as the 
sweet-brier how to shoot, and they too showed the beautiful 
results of devoted and assiduous culture. 

I have seen the extraordinary effects of the application of 
guano all over the country, and I have met with very few 
instances of disappointment. I have been favored with a great 
many reports of its application ; but my readers will, I think, be 
better satisfied with general results than with a long list of par- 
ticular examples. 

When I speak of its extraordinary effects, I yet do not con- 
sider them as so surprising as the effects of gypsum in many 
parts of the United States, whose operation, I venture to say, 
remains wholly unexplained. I do not, of course, mean to 
imply that one can be substituted for the other. The effects of 
half a bushel of finely-powdered gypsum, scattered over an acre 
of land, in some places, in increasing the crop of grass, and in 
respect to some other crops, is amazing ; yet in all England, I 
have not been able to find a single well-attested example of its 
being applied with any benefit whatever. The appliiiation of 
guano has been made, in England and Scotland, to all kinds of 
plants, and in some instances with great success ; indeed with 
rarely a failure. 

It has been used for turnips, barley, wheat, oats, grass, garden 
vegetables, onions, asparagus, potatoes, flowers, and trees. I 
have seen its application in all these cases, excepting asparagus 
and trees ; but the testimony which certifies its success in these 
cases is unquestionable. Comparisons made between guano and 
other manures, are not quite satisfactory in respect to quantities, 
because it is obviously very difficult to institute any instructive 
comparison between so many pounds of guano, and so many 
loads of manure ; manure is so various in its nature, quality, 
bulk, &.C. ; but it will be quite easy to compare the two in 
respect to the ease or difficulty of their transportation, and of 
their application to the plant or soil. Comparisons, likewise, in 
respect to the cost of different applications, as made here, would 
be of little use in the United States, as prices of manure and of 
labor are totally different : and the one can afford no rule for the 



274 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Other. In this matter, the farmers of the United States must 
judge for themselves. 

The quantity which it is deemed best to apply varies from 
two hundred weight to four hundred weight, or five hundred 
weight. Frequent cases have occurred of the application of five 
hundred weight and eight hundred weight, to a statute acre, with 
great advantage. Cases are on record of twenty-nine and thirty 
hundred weight being applied to grass-land with a great, but not, 
most certainly, a remunerating increase of crop. I met one farm- 
er in Lincolnshire, who thought more than one hundred weight 
applied to turnips was unnecessary ; but the almost universal 
testimony is in favor of three hundred weight. A bushel of 
sifted guano weighs from fifty-two to fifty-four pounds. 

In regard to the mode of application, it is well settled that it 
should seldom be applied alone. To garden vegetables, or 
greenhouse plants, it may be applied in a state of solution in 
water. In field cultivation, it may be applied by being mixed 
with four or six times its quantity of dry earth or mould. In 
this way, it may be sown broadcast over the field, and then 
lightly harrowed or turned in ; or it may be sown first in the 
same drill where the seed is to be dropped ; great care must be 
taken, however, that it does not come in contact with the seed, 
or it will destroy its vegetative powers. It is desirable that it 
should be covered as soon as may be after being sown. The 
best farmers give a caution against mixing it with lime, or 
bones, or wood-ashes, as these substances, coming in contact 
with it, will drive off its ammonia. 

Where a portion of barn manure has been applied in conjunc- 
tion with guano, the mixture has been found much more effica- 
cious than the manure when applied alone. In an application 
which I saw, guano gave seven tons of turnips increase to an 
acre over an artificial manure which had been much praised, and 
was applied at the same time. 

A good mode of preparing it for application is to mix it with 
fine earth, on the headlands of the field where it is to be used, 
forming it, with the earth, into alternate layers, in the proportion 
of earth to the guano of three to one ; and after it has remained 
two or three days, thoroughly incorporating them together by 
turning over the heap. 



GUANO. 275 

With potatoes, it should be placed in the drill or hole, but not 
in contact with the set or seed ; and for Indian corn — a case in 
which I have had no experience — it would seem advisable to 
adopt a similar method. 

The experiments of Mr. John Dudgeon have been given to 
the public at large. As I had the pleasure of visiting his farm, 
one of the best-managed in the kingdom, and saw some of the 
experiments going on, I feel at liberty to give them, and it may 
be interesting to my readers to have them in his own words. 

" The following results, communicated by John Dudgeon, 
Esq., of Spylaw, to the Highland and Agricultural Society, in 
April, 1843, show, first, the relative produce of turnips from 
guano applied at the rate of three hundred weight, four hundred 
weight, and five hundred weight, per acre, in competition with 
the produce from the farm-yard manure, applied at the rate of 
eighteen yards per acre ; secondly, the trial of hone-dust with 
coal-ashes against guano alone, and guano mixed with a portion 
of sulphate of soda; thirdly, the trial of guano alone against 
bone-dust alone. 

" ' The first experiment was in a field lying upon a slope, 
with a southern exposure, the soil consisting of a good loam 
upon a retentive sub-soil ; the upper part of the field, for about a 
fourth of its length, gradually becoming shallower in soil, and 
resting upon a hard muirland pan, so that the value of the lower 
portion of the field, as compared with the upper, may be esti- 
mated as three to one. This field has been but imperfectly 
drained. It was dunged in the usual Avay, immediately before 
sowing, with well-prepared farm-yard manure, at the rate of 
about eighteen cubic yards to the acre, with the exception of 
that portion to which guano was applied. Two ordinary drills 
for the latter were selected at random, and the guano distributed 
in them by the hand, without any mixture, at the rate of three 
hundred weight per acre. Leaving an interval of three drills, 
which were manured like the rest of the field, two other drills 
were treated with guano, at the rate of four hundred weight per 
acre ; and finally, with a similar space intervening, two drills 
with guano at the rate of fully more than five hundred weight 
per acre. No difference appeared in the turnips (which were the 
variety named Dale's hybrid) previous to singling or thinning 
the plants with the hoe ; after that, however, the superiority of 



276 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the drills with the guano became manifest, and continued to 
increase with the growth of the turnips, particularly in those 
drills which received the greatest quantity, till the whole were 
carted off in October, when the produce (topped and rooted) of 
the whole six drills were weighed, each two as differing in the 
quantity of guano applied, compared with two drills immediately 
adjoining, on which the farm-yard manure had been used. The 
following was the result : — 

Kinds of Manure. Quantities applied. Produce per Acre. 



Two drills 


Avith 


GUANO, . 


. 5 cwt. 


per 


acre, 


. 25 


cwt. 


5 St 


.'< a 


c 


dung, . 


. 18 yds. 


a 


a 


. 18 




J u 


11 a 


li 


GUANO, . 


. 4 cwt. 


u 


u 


. 22 




6 " 


a u 


a 


dung, . 


. IS yds. 


'■'■ 


a 


. 19 




7 " 


u u 


i'. 


GUANO, . 


3 cwt. 


u 


u 


. 20 




6 '^ 


ii a 


a 


dung, . 


. 18 yds. 


(.', 


(.', 


. . 19 




2 '• 



'• ' In the second experiment, a comparative trial was made 
between guano and hone-d,ust mixed with coal-ashes. The 
ashes were sifted, and intimately mixed with the bones, some 
days before being applied, in the proportion of sixteen bushels of 
bones and eight of ashes, per acre. The quantity of guano 
applied was at the rate of three hundred weight per acre upon 
four drills, two and two together, at an interval of eight drills 
manured with bones and ashes. Then, at a similar interval, 
followed two drills, operated upon with guano together with 
sulphate of soda, (Glauber salts,) at the rate of four hundred 
weight per acre — being the only instance, in the course of these 
experiments, in which any foreign substance was used with the 
guano. The turnips were drawn about the end of November ; 
and on a comparison of the weight of the crop on two of the 
four drills done with guano alone, with the produce of the 
average of four drills, nearly immediately adjoining, manured 
with hone-dust and ashes, the result stood thus (the plants being 
topped and rooted) : — 

Manures. Produce per Acre. 

GuANo, alone, 23 cwt. 2 st. 

Guano and sulphate of soda, 23 " " 

Bone-dust, 19 " 2 " 



GUANO. 



277 



" ' In the third experiment, guano was used against hone-dust 
alone, applied, as is usual in that district, at the rate of sixteen 
bushels per acre. The guano was used at the rate of two hun- 
dred weight only per acre. The drills manured with the latter 
showed a very early superiority, and were ready for the hoe 
fully eight days earlier than the rest of the field. This more 
vigorous growth they maintained throughout : and when the 
turnips (the white stone globe variety) were weighed, on the 
22d March, after standing throughout the winter, the result was 
as follows (the roots and tops being in this instance retained) : — 

"' Two drills guano, 31 cwt. 4 st. 

Two " bone-dust, 24 cwt. 7 st.' " 

" The following table, extracted from the Scotsman, is the 
result of an experiment on a field which had, till the present 
crop, been in grass from time immemorial. The soil was a dry, 
friable loam. The turnips were sown on the 20th of May, and 
hfted and weighed on the 27th of November, 1843. 



Kinds and Q,tian.titie3 of 
Manures used per Acre. 



Price of 

Manure 

per 

Acre. 



Weight of 
Turnips without 
Roots or Tops. 



Weight of 

Roots and 

Tops. 



Weight of 
rotten 
Turnips, 



Weight of 

total Product 

per Acre. 



Gdano, 5 cwts 

Farm dung, 12 carts, . 
Bones, 26.^ bushels, . 
Rape-dust, 12 cwts. . 



£ s. 

2 15 

3 12 
3 3 
3 



T. C. lb. 
29 17 13 
25 7 8 
25 12.i 12 
22 19i 22 



T. C. lb. 
6 12i 11 
6 15 6 
5 1| 14 
5 9 



T. C. 

1 13 

2 12 
14 

2 84 



T. C. lb. 

38 2| 13 
34 14 27 
31 8.^ 20 
30 17A 0.' 



Guano has been applied to winter wheat, both in drills and 
broadcast, and with signal success. It has been applied, like- 
Avise, with great success, to grass and pasture land, as the follow- 
ing statement will show : — 

" On an eight-acre field, sown with three hundred weight of 
guano, and three bushels of Italian rye-grass per acre, on the 
29th of April, cut on the 3d of August, the produce weighed, 
when cut, eighteen tons, and when dry and ready for stack, four 
tons, per acre. Much of this crop was upwards of five feet long. 
So rapid was the growth, that, fifty hours after cutting, it had 
again sprung up to the height of three and one eighth inches. 
With such grass, and such manure, so easily convertible into 
liquid, I see no reason to doubt that the cottager, with his five 
roods of land, could supply his house with vegetables, and cow 
with winter and summer food, thereby providing for his family 
an almost entire subsistence." 
24 



278 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

It has been questioned whether its eftects will be permanent. 
I can only answer, that I have seen its obviously beneficial 
effects three years after its application upon grass. How much 
longer its efficacy may be expected to continue, experience only 
can determine. 

Several kinds of guano have been brought into Great Britain ; 
but the great distinction is between that from the Island of 
Ichaboe, on the coast of Africa, and that from the islands in the 
Pacific. The former seems entirely deficient in uric acid, and 
consequently lacks what is deemed a valuable element in vege- 
tation. The comparative value of the two in public estimation, 
and in the opinion of a distinguished chemist, is supposed to be 
as four to five. The supply from Ichaboe is said to be ex- 
hausted, the enormous quantity of five to six hundred thousand 
tons having been taken, as is stated, from that single island. 

I should do wrong to say that guano is always successful. 
There were many complaints this year of its failure, attributed 
to the excessive droughts which prevailed at the beginning of 
the season. A farmer likewise, in Cambridgeshire, communi- 
cates to the Royal Agricultural Society, in their last journal, his 
failure in two successive applications of it to crops of barley. In 
neither instance does any advantage appear to have been gained. 
He attributes this to something in the nature or character of the 
soil ; but this, without further trials, must be set down as wholly 
conjectural. 

It is quite proper, likewise, that I should urge upon the farm- 
ers of the United States, that, however auspicious and brilliant 
may be the promises which guano holds out to them, they must 
not overlook the resources for enriching their own lands within 
their own reach. The following statement will strengthen this 
advice. 

Philip Pusey, Esq., M. P., than whom, I believe, wherever his 
character for intelligent, accurate, and philosophical observation 
is known, it will be universally admitted, there is no higher 
agricultural authority in England, informed me that, the last 
season, he carted to the headlands of one of his fields a quantity 
of loam, mixed with coal-ashes and rubbish, and, having formed 
it into a bed, heaped upon it a quantity of barn manure, from 
the drippings of which the loam, &c., became completely satu- 
rated. Upon the application of this to the land for a crop of 



GUANO. 279 

turnips, by the side of the same crop manured with three hun- 
dred weight of guanOj the advantage was very greatly in favor 
of the former. 

Mr. James Smith, of Deanston, states that a friend of his ma- 
nured three acres ; the first with fifteen tons of stable-dung, cost 
£4; tjie second acre with three hundred weight of guano, cost 
£1, 6s. ; the third acre with eight tons of hquid manure, cost 
2 s. 6d. ; and the crop on the last was far the best. Dr. Playfair 
was kind enough to communicate to me this statement. 

In an admirable lecture, delivered by the last-named active 
and intelligent friend of an improved agriculture, at the meeting 
of the Royal Agricultural Society, that gentleman saw fit to 
state that one pound of urine contained materials for producing 
one pound of wheat ; and that the effete matter which runs into 
the Thames, annually, from the city of London, amounts to 

1,095,000,000 pounds in one year, 
and contains nitrogen sufficient to produce 

1,600,000,000 pounds of wheat, 
1,800,000,000 pounds of barley ; 
and, calculating this waste at a moderate value, for agricultu- 
ral purposes, London suffers a loss of £1,000,000 sterling, or 
5,000,000 dollars per year. 

These curious statistics wall, I know, give no off"ence to any 
sensible person ; and they may suggest considerations of the 
very highest moment to the rising cities of the United States, 
where the sanatary and economical arrangements are not com- 
pleted, and in many cases not begun. They especially enforce 
upon every individual farmer the duty of examining and hus- 
banding, with a miserly frugality, all the resources of his own 
farm, even the- most inconsiderable and humble. They have, I 
may be allowed to say, a far higher use by leading the reflecting 
and serious mind to admire and adore the never-ending circles 
of the divine beneficence ; the mixed and wonderful compensa- 
tions and mutual subserviences which pervade the whole system 
of nature ; and, above all, that constant miracle of miracles, going 
on continually in the vegetable world, by which the most worth- 
less and the most offensive substances are returned again to bless 
the animal creation, in those substantial products by which life 
is sustained, and comfort every where diff'used, in fruits most 
delicious to the senses, and in plants, and flowers, which, in 



280 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



their variety, and beauty, and wonderful glory and splendor, 
infinitely surpass the highest triumphs of human art and luxury. 
I think proper here to subjoin several analyses of guano with 
which I have been favored by a most accurate chemist, Mr. 
E. F. Teschemacher, to whose unremitted kindness, in various 
forms, I am most deeply obliged. Indeed, when I think of the 
debts which I have incurred, in this way, and which have been 
forced upon me, on this side of the water, I fear nothing is left 
for me but to take advantage of the act of general bankruptcy, 
with the mortification of feeling, from the number of my cred- 
itors, how very small a dividend can be made. 

" Dear Sir : 

'* I have taken the first moment I had to spare, to fulfil 
my promise of giving you some details relative to guanoes — espe- 
cially the analyses of the various kinds imported within the last 
eighteen months into this country, which have come under my 
cognizance. The analyses were performed by me during the 
course of my business, and are so arranged that a comparison may 
be easily made between them. Upon comparing these analyses 
with those of other analysts, I find them generally to agree in all 
their essential characters. 



" No. 1. Peruviati. 

" 100 parts consist of 9 parts 
of ammonia, combined with 
phosphoric, carbonic, uric, 
and organic acids, form- 
ing, of 
Ammoniacal salts, . . .40 
Animal organic matter, . 6J 
Sulphate and muriate of 

potash and soda, . . .11^ 
Phosphate of lime and 

magnesia, 29^ 

Sand, 1 

Water, lU 

100 
" The Peruvian contains 
11^ parts of uric acid. 



" No. 2. Bolivian. 

"100 parts contain 10^ parts 

ammonia, combined as in No. 

1, forming, of 
Ammoniacal salts, ... 36 
Animal organic matter, . 5 
Sulphate and muriate of 

potash and soda, . . . 15^ 
Phosphate of lime and 

magnesia, 27| 

Sand, U 

Water, _1£ 

100 

" The Bolivian contains 3 
per cent, of uric acid. 



GUANO. 



281 



" The uric acid is considered to furnish the crops with additional 
ammonia, which, after application, is given out by degrees. 



''No. 3. Chilian. 

"100 parts containing 3 parts 

ammonia, combined with 

phosphoric, oxahc, carbonic, 

humic, and organic acids, 

forming, of 

Ammoniacal salts, . . . 12J 

Animal organic matter, . 2^ 

Sulphate and muriate of 

potash and soda, . . .7^ 
Phosphate of lime and mag- 
nesia, and oxalate lime, . 53 

Sand, 2 

Water, ...... ._22J 

100 

" This guano contains no 
uric acid. 

'•'No. 4. Ichaboe Guano. 

" 100 parts containing 7J parts 

ammonia, combined with 

phosphoric, oxalic, carbonic, 

and humic acids, forming, of 

Ammoniacal salts, . . . 26J 

Animal organic matter, . 7^ 

Sulphate and muriate of 

potash, and phosphate 

potash, 10 

Phosphate lime, and mag- 
nesia, and oxalate lime, 30 

Sand, 1 

Water, 25 

100 
" Contains no uric acid. 

24* 



"No. 5. Angra de Pequena. 

"100 parts contain 5 parts am- 
monia, combined as in No. 4, 
forming, of 
Ammoniacal salts, ... 20 
Animal organic matter, . . 5 
Sulphate and muriate of 
potash, and phosphate 

potash, 11 

Phosphate of lime and mag- 
nesia, and oxalate lime, . 32 

Sand, 2 

Water, _30 

100 

"No uric acid. 

"No. 6. Possession Islatid. 

" Very like that from Angra 
de Pequena, but very lumpy. 
" No uric acid. 

"No. 7. Pedestal Point. 

" 100 parts contain 4^ parts am- 
monia, combined as in No. 
4, forming, of 
Ammoniacal salts, . . .14 
Animal organic matter, . 6 
Sulphate and muriate of 
potash, and phosphate 

potash, 6i 

Phosphate of lime and mag- 
nesia, and oxalate lime, 37 

Sand, 7 

Water, • 29J - 

100 

" No uric acid. 



282 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

^^ No. 8. Bird Islands ; Algoa Bay. 

" 100 parts contain 2^ parts ammonia, combined as in No. 4, 
forming, of 

Ammoniacal salts, lOJ 

Animal organic matter, 8^ 

Sulphate and muriate of potash, 2J 

Phosphate of lime and magnesia, (no oxalate lime,) ... 62 

Sand, li 

Water, 15 

Too 

"No. 8 contains no uric acid. 

" No. 1 to 3 are South American guanoes. 
"No. 4 to 8 are African guanoes. 

" I have examined guano from other localities, but as I do not 
know those localities, I have omitted them in the list. 



^^ Guano Testing. 

" 1. A small portion, about 100 grains, mixed and rubbed with 
10 parts of chalk to 1 part of quick-lime, should give out a 
strong smell of ammonia ; and on holding over the mixture a 
glass rod moistened with muriatic acid, a dense white vapor 
should be given off. If this effect does not take place, the 
guano will contain very little ammoniacal salts. 

" 2. 100 grains guano, heated to redness in a Hessian crucible, 
should leave a white ash. This white ash should be nearly 
soluble in dilute muriatic acid. The residue should not exceed 
10 grains ; in good guano, the residue would be only 1 or 2 
grains. 

" The quantity of white ash will vary from 30 to 60 per cent., 
according to the nature of the guano. 

"Yom's truly, 

" E. F. Teschemacher. 

" No. 2 Park Terrace, Highbury, 
24 January, 1845." 



GUANO. 



283 



I add to these some analyses forwarded to me from the Edin- 
burgh Agricultural Chemical Association, by my esteemed friend, 
Mr. John P. Norton. 



Two Guanoes from Ichaboe. 



No. I. 



Water, 20.46 

Organic matter and ammoniacal salts, . 44.96 
Sulphate of soda and potash, with 

common salt, 

Phosphates of lime and magnesia. 

Carbonate of lime, 

Silicious matter, 2.15 

3 per cent, free ammonia in No. I. 



4.49 

27.31 

0.07 



99.44 



" These are fair samples of the Ichaboe guanoes, 
defect is too much water. 



No. II. 
18 00 
52.60 

4.89 

19.22 

4.83 



99.54 



Their only 



'^TiDO South American Guanoes. 



Water and free ammonia, .... 
Organic matter and ammoniacal salts. 
Sulphate and muriate of soda, . . . 
Phosphate of lime, and a little phos- 
phate of magnesia, 

Carbonates of lime and magnesia, 
Insoluble silicious matter, .... 



Peruvian. 


Bolivian 


. 3.14 . 


. 5.34 


. 63.52 . 


. 58.00 


. 5.02 . 


. 6.37 


22.20 . 


. 25.27 


. 4.96 . 


. 3.95 


. 1.16 . 


. 1.07 



100.00 



100.00. 



" These are both most excellent guanoes. The small proportion 
of water is remarkable, and the large quantity of organic matter 
and ammoniacal salts. This first, and then the phosphates, are 
the criteria of value. Carbonate of lime, sulphate and muriate 
of soda, «fcc., are valuable manures, but may be bought lower 
than £6 or £8 per ton. 



^84 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



^^ Artificial Guano, {Potter'' s.) 

Water, 14.55 

Organic matter, 17.32 

Salts soluble in water, consisting of common salt and 
gypsum, with a small quantity of potash and am- 

moniacal salts, 40.43 

Phosphate and carbonate of lime, 11.61 

Coarse sand, with bits of gypsum, 16.06 

99.97 

" This, therefore, contains 30 per cent, of water and sand. One 
by the same maker, previously examined, had about 30 per cent, 
of sand alone." 

The following is from a chemist of the highest scientific 
character. Dr. Ure : — 

" Reserving, for the present, the more particular analyses, the 
following may be offered as the average result of those I have 
made of genuine guano, in reference to its agricultural value : — 

" Azotized organic matter, including urate of ammonia, 
and capable of aifording from 8 to 17 per cent, of 
ammonia by slow decomposition in the soil, . . .50.0 

Water, 11.0 

Phosphate of lime, 25.0 

Ammonia, phosphate of magnesia, phosphate of ammo- 
nia, and oxalate of ammonia, containing from 4 to 

9 per cent, of ammonia, 13.0 

Silicious matter from the crops of the birds, .... 1.0 

100.0." 







K'^ 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



FOURTH REPORT. 



XLVI.— GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

The great incentive to all agricultural improvement is profit. 
The man who is satisfied with a bare subsistence will do little 
towards making his condition better. It is one of the prominent 
blessings of civilization, that it multiplies human wants and 
desires to such a degree as to call out all the powers of the body 
and mind to supply them. In proportion as civilization is 
advanced, human wants increase. From necessities we proceed 
to indulgences, from indulgences to luxuries ; until what were 
at first indulgences and luxuries become themselves transformed 
into necessities. Out of these spring other indulgences and 
other luxuries, which go on by a sort of reduplication or spon- 
taneous generation, to which as yet no limits have been reached, 
and we have reason to think that none are very near. When 
one class or species fails, or passes away, others come into its 
place, like sprouts springing from the living stump of a tree 
which has been cut down ; or like the countless plants which 
come up where a single plant has been suffered to ripen and to 
shed its seed. 

Besides this efiect of use or indulgence in increasing, and in 
giving an insatiableness to, human wants, there is an original and 
native element of the human mind, which the phrenologists 
designate as acquisitiveness, or a desire to obtain. This, when 
joined with secretiveness, becomes a desire to keep or to accumu- 



286 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

late as well as to obtain, which, though liable to abuse, yet, like 
all other original tendencies of our nature, is designed for good. 
This operates as a continual stimulus to exertion, and rouses 
energies, and awakens an ambition, and strengthens and pro- 
duces a perseverance and tenacity of purpose, which, in the 
creation and accumulation of wealth, lie at the foundation of 
most of the great improvements of society, and again in its turn 
creates a power or instrument of influence, which itself com- 
mands thousands of minds, and thousands of hands, to unite with 
an energy similar to its own in the accomplishment of its own 
objects. 

All this does good ; prevents the waters of society from be- 
coming stagnant and unwholesome, and keeps them in a state 
of continued and healthful agitation. If human wants, having 
a sort of polypus vitality, are constantly increased by being sup- 
plied, it is no less true that the powers of the human mind and 
body are always increased and strengthened by being properly 
exerted. As the mind becomes enlightened and expanded, it is 
tempted to extend its dominion over matter and over other 
minds. In the spirit of an ambition never knowing enough, it 
goes out ''conquering and to conquer.-' It invades other 
dominions of nature, and makes ev^ery where the elements of 
the material world subservient to its purposes. 

It is said that an Indian, when, on a certain occasion, he was 
brought from the solitude and destitution of his forest-home into 
a busy manufacturing town, and saw windmills with their sails 
inflated by the air, and water-wheels driven by the running 
stream, and steam-engines impelled by an agent of which before 
he had scarcely conceived, and the furnaces where, by the appli- 
cations of fire, the iron-stones were made to flow in liquid 
streams, and to take the forms which the workman's pleasure 
dictated, exclaimed, in his amazement, that the white man made 
every thing work for him — the fire, the air, the water. Nothing 
could have been more natural than his surprise. Thus it is that 
human genius devotes itself to science ; and every step in science 
imparts a disposition and capacity to advance farther. It invents 
language and signs, that it may transfix, and hold fast, thoughts, 
and facts, and discoveries, for further use. It employs the powers 
of nature to increase, and multiply, and strengthen, other powers, 
and thus is constantly extending its sovereignty over mind and 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 287 

matter, and assuming more and more to itself, in its humble 
capacities, the character of a creator. Thus it is that the fruitful 
powers of nature are called forth ; the means of animal life and 
subsistence extended ; the productions of the earth increased, di- 
versified, and improved. Under an improved cultivation, ten men 
find ample and luxurious support, where, before, one would have 
starved. New vegetables and new fruits are brought into 
existence and use, or others rendered more abundant ; and with 
the increase of vegetable, the increase of animal life is immeas- 
urably extended. Thus it is that new forms of comfort, luxury, 
and ornament appear with corresponding wants on the part of 
those who are to enjoy them ; new means of subsistence are 
supplied ; new forms of habitation are demanded ; new articles 
of clothing are provided. All the wonders of art spring up ; the 
multiplied embellishments of refined life present themselves ; 
and the progress of society is in all respects advanced and con- 
tinually advancing. 

All this grows out of that original element of the human mind 
to which I early alluded, — acquisitiveness, the desire of gain, or 
advance, or betterment, or profit, — which thus stimulates men to 
the continual improvement of their condition. But all this, we 
are told by some men, springs from selfishness, and they de- 
nounce it as criminal. Their denunciations are without reason, 
and they make no just discrimination between the difi'erent con- 
ditions of a principle which in its original nature is wholesome 
and useful, and becomes wrong and pernicious only by its ex- 
travagance and abuse. 

What would man be without any regard to his own interest ? 
It is an instinctive impulse which prompts us to take care of 
our lives. Self-preservation is the first law of our nature. But 
the same law implies the most diligent care of our health, and 
all that varied and extended provision for health and comfort, 
necessary to the continuance of life, and to its continuance under 
circumstances most favorable to its activity, usefulness, and 
reasonable enjoyment. But who is to take care of us, if we do 
not take care of ourselves ? If every man, instead of providing 
for his own wants, gave himself up to the care of his neighbor 
it is not easy to see that any advantage would be gained by it. 
Every one would find tliat, besides multiplied inconveniences, 
the provision for himself would bo far less complete and satis- 



288 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

factory than when under his own immediate superintendence 
and control. The evils of selfishness do not lie in a man's 
appropriating to himself that to which he has a just claim, and 
which he may enjoy without injury to his neighbor, but in the 
appropriation of that to which he has no fair title, and which he 
cannot so appropriate without injury to his neighbor, and with- 
out an invasion of the just rights of other men. That meanness 
of selfishness, which some men exhibit, and which seeks the 
exclusive enjoyment of whatever it can accumulate, irrespective 
of the comfort, and at the expense of the toil, of others, — that dog- 
in-the-manger selfishness, which accumulates without imparting, 
and seems to experience its highest zest in contrasting its own 
fulness with the destitution and misery of others, — is as odious as 
it is criminal. On the other hand, that rational regard to one's 
own interest which prompts a man continually to take the best 
possible care of his body and mind ; to secure his health, that his 
physical activity and vigor may be increased, and to cultivate 
and improve his mind, that it may resemble, in its fruitfulness, a 
well-tilled and enriched field ; to increase likewise his estate, and 
embellish and adorn it ; and to accumulate wealth that he may 
multiply the sources of good to others, stimulate others to exer- 
tion, and lead to those generous improvements which wealth is 
capable of producing, and to which it may be beneficially 
applied, — this is a sentiment, which, so far from being to be con- 
demned, is to be commended and cherished as the great instru- 
ment and spring, as much of social and public, as of personal 
and individual good. 

Improvement of every kind lies in action. The happiness 
which never satiates or wearies is to be found in the conscious- 
ness of progress. Who that has experienced a dead calm at sea, 

— not a breath of wind to ruffle the waves, the vessel tossing from 
one side to the other like a cork upon the water, the rigging 
shaking, the sails flapping, the crew idle and listless, no progress 
reported, and the whole company wearied, impatient, despond- 
ing, ill-humored, — and compares this with a brisk gale blowing, 

— every rope straightened, every sail spread and filled, the planks 
of the ship creaking as it were with intense exertion, the masts 
bending almost to breaking under their burden, the crew awake, 
the passengers all animated with hope and delighted with the 
certainty of progress, and the noble sliip, with her priceless cargo 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 289 

of human life and fortune, moving like a thing of life over the 
billows, and, as she ploughs her proud path through, as it were, a 
flood of liquid silver, throwing the glittering and brilliant tresses 
of jewels from her neck, — who has had this experience, and will 
not feel how little to be desired, either for the body or the mind, 
for health or enjoyment, for the animal or the moral man, is a 
state of inanity and sluggish repose ? 

The poets — those ethereal beings, who deal in fiction, and 
whose imagination becomes a sort of ignis fatuus, a " Will-of-the- 
wisp," leading them they know not where — love to descant upon 
the Golden Ages or the Paradisiacal state, when men, without 
care for food or clothing, had nothing to do, but, under a calm 
sky and a soft air, to lie down on banks of fragrant flowers, by 
the side of gurgling streams, under the shade of spreading aro- 
matic trees, and. let the richest fruits fall into their laps, and 
listen to the ^olian strains of the winds whispering among the 
branches, and the melodious songs of birds of the gayest plu- 
mage fluttering around them, and abandon themselves to the 
charms of a purely animal and sensual existence. But what 
reflecting man would desire such a life as this for himself, and 
would not feel an intolerable restlessness, and especially a morti- 
fying consciousness that it falls, one may almost say, infinitely 
below the capacities of his nature and the purposes of his being ? 

I cannot look out of my window, where I am now writing, in 
Trafalgar Square at Charing Cross, without seeing a world of in- 
describable life, and bustle, and activity. The night in London 
is seldom longer than from half past two o'clock until four o'clock 
in the morning, when the flood-gates begin gently to open, and 
gradually the rushing torrent of life pours through in a turbid 
and boisterous flood. After the waters begin to move with force, 
there is perhaps not a minute in the day when more than a thou- 
sand, or rather thousands, of people cannot be counted from my 
window. Here are carriages without number, from the splendid 
chariot with its noble horses, its gorgeous equipage, its liveried 
servants, and its precious cargo of figured porcelain, down to the 
humble gig, the dray-horse, the wheelbarrow, and the donkey-cart 
with its precious load of garbage or of dog's-meat. Here are 
shops without number, replete with all the most exquisite produc- 
tions of science, genius, art, and mechanical contrivance, and full 
of buyers and sellers. Here are crowds of men, women, and chil- 
2.5 



290 KUllOPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

dren, passing and repassing, sauntering, walking, running, and 
jostling each other, waiting upon and being waited upon, enter- 
taining and being entertained, carrying and being carried, labor- 
ing and enjoying. Here are caravansaries for the travellers, 
banks for merchants, monuments to heroes and princes, schools 
of science, galleries of art, and temples to God, adorned Avith 
the finest embellishments of architectural skill, and lifting their 
beautiful spires to the skies, as if, from the glittering vane 
upon tliG top, they would emulate the brilliancy of a fixed star, 
and as if, like the star which stood over the sacred spot of a 
divine nativity, they would present Heaven's brilliant emblem of 
mercy to encourage man's faith and piety. Here, too, are foun- 
tains of water throwing up their liquid treasures over their heads, 
and coming down in constant showers of brilliants. Here are 
men, and the busy and exciting concerns of men, under all the 
varying aspects of human life and activity. Here are the mag- 
nificent triumphs of human art and skill ; here are the fruits of 
centuries of toil and labor ; and here is one continued intensity 
of action, as if it were the very heart of the great world beating 
with violent emotion. But none of this, properly speaking, is 
mechanical ; it is all intellectual ; it is all under the dominion of 
mind to excite, to urge, to direct, to control it. There is a far 
mightier power at work within than appears Avithout. If you 
could take off the roof of some of these moving tabernacles ; if 
vou could see what is there lying beneath, the burning thoughts, 
the anxious desires, the resolute purposes, the beating affections, 
and the fiery passions, which are there at work, and as it were 
mingling in one common flame, you would indeed see objects 
more curious and wonderful, an exhibition far more extraordinary, 
than any thing ever before presented to your senses, or even to 
your imagination. But what is the secret spring, the great 
power-wheel which sets all these things in motion, which excites 
and quickens all tliis activity ? It is acquisition, the desire to 
acquire subsistence, pleasure, profit, wealth, or power. 

Would it be better that all this should cease, and society 
become a mere stagnant pool ? Would it be better that all the 
necessity of labor should be taken away, and men should hav'8 
no other destiny than to repose in quiet, with all their wants 
supplied, and all their senses gratified ; and that down couches 
slioul'J be spread round these gushing fountains, and instead of 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 291 

water they should send forth the delicious juices of the grape, — 
though perhaps, to suit the English taste, it should be ale or 
beer, or what is vulgarly called " half and half," for that is the 
Englishman's nectar, — and that men should have only to drink it 
in at pleasure, or, in common parlance, to enjoy themselves? 1 
think not. I believe Heaven could send no greater curse than 
to exempt mankind from all necessity of labor. 

If we look at the condition of the inhabitants of tropical coun- 
tries, where the richest fruits of the earth grow spontaneously, 
where clothing and shelter are scarcely required, and where men 
are exempted from the necessity of labor, we shall find them 
sunk in sensuality, abandoned to animal indulgences, and in 
intellectual and moral condition at the lowest scale. If we com- 
pare them with the inhabitants of temperate regions, the dis- 
parity will be seen to be great, but vastly in favor of the latter. 
The intellect is sharpened, as well as the muscular vigor in- 
creased, in proportion to the difficulties with which it has to 
struggle, and the labor by which it is taxed, provided that la- 
bor is not excessive and unnatural. Though there may be a 
severity of toil wholly discouraging, and difficulties which are 
perfectly hopeless and insurmountable, — which cases we must of 
course except, — yet, in point of actual enjoyment, there cannot be 
a doubt on which side the advantage lies ; and that the neces- 
sity of exertion, and every wholesome stimulus to useful and 
honest labor, is a blessing from Heaven. 

The condition of the Irish peasantry likewise strongly illus- 
trates and confirms these truths. Nothing can exceed the 
destitution and wretchedness in which millions of these people 
live. I have been into many of their cabins, and have seen 
the habitations of thousands and thousands of these miserable 
people ; and, in regard to external accommodations, I can scarcely 
think that there is upon earth a lower condition of human 
existence. Certainly the wigwam of an American savage may 
often be regarded with envy for its comforts, compared with 
many an Irish cabin. I have been into those which were mere 
holes dug into the side of a peat bog, and have put my hand 
upon the wet and velvety walls, that I might be certain my 
senses did not deceive me. In these caves, covered with sticks, 
and straw, and sods ; without chimney, window, or lloor ; with a 
fire of turf slowly burning upon the ground and filling the place 



292 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

with smoke ; without bed, table, chair, or plate, or knife, or fork ; 
with, indeed, no article of furniture save a kettle in which to boil 
their potatoes, and a basket in which to take them up ; with no 
other seat but a bit of dried turf or peat, and no bed to lie down 
upon but a flock of straw, which was frequently shared in 
common by the children and the pig, — I have found a crowded 
family, with rags for clothing that scarcely hid their nakedness, 
living from one year's end to the other upon potatoes and water, 
and never more than once a year tasting either bread or meat. 

This is not the place for me to enter into the political con- 
siderations connected with this condition of things in a country 
which, in respect to its climate and soil, and resources for useful 
industry, and means not only of comfortable subsistence to a 
population quadruple of that which exists there, but in means of 
abundance and wealth, is eminently favored of Heaven. But I 
refer to the example of Ireland to show that where persons can 
remain satisfied under privation and extreme penury ; where 
they are content to live upon the meanest fare, and to occupy 
habitations scarcely fit for the shelter of the lowest of the brute 
creation ; where, with only a mud-cabin and a potato patch, 
without even money enough to pay the wedding-fee, (for this is 
made out by the contributions of friends on the occasion,) they 
are willing to take upon themselves the responsibilities of 
marriage, and become the founders of families to be born only to 
inherit a similar destitution and wretchedness, it is difficult 
to find motives to rouse them to exertion and industry. Until 
a revolution can be effected in their feelings, and a set of wants 
created within them, any strong hopes of the improvement of 
their condition seem idle. 

The wants of men, then, are the great incentives to exertion ; 
and the stimulus of profit, the desire of gain and of accumulation, 
is that wliich induces enterprise and eftort, which excites inquiry 
and leads to knowledge, which prompts to labor, and thus urges 
men on to new acquisitions and continual progress. We may 
appeal to higher motives than self-interest, where there are 
minds capable of appreciating a higher class of motives ; but it 
is absurd to consider inferior motives as wrong, where better 
cannot be had ; and self-interest and the desire of gain are not 
only innocent, but commendable, where we do not seek gain or 
pursue our own interests to the injury and loss of others. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 293 

I fear I may be thought to have gone out of my way by such 
a preface as this ; yet I hope I may have the indulgence of my 
readers for an honest endeavor to enliven a subject of dry details 
with matter which, though it may seem distant from, is certainly 
not irrelevant to my purpose. I have not always found it a 
hinderance, though it may appear like an interruption, in making 
a tour of business, sometimes to dismount, and, throwing the 
reins over the neck of my horse, that he too might regale himself 
by the roadside, lie down on a green bank, under a quiet shade, 
by some sparkling stream, and abandon myself for a while to the 
charming thoughts which then come fluttering round the mind, 
like fireflies upon a meadow in a quiet evening of summer ; or 
at other times to leap the fence, and rush into the fields or the 
neighboring forest, and return with a handful of golden grain, or 
a bouquet of wild flowers gathered fresh from the bosom of 
nature, and showing the exuberant bounty of Heaven, or the 
triumphs of artificial culture. I could then mount my horse, 
refreshed by the indulgence, and pursue my journey with new 
speed, with senses more alive to the beauties of the country 
through which I was passing, and with a more grateful sense of 
the goodness of the great Author of nature, who, by this varied 
mixture, by alternations of light and shade, of labor and rest, of 
toil and indulgence, and by an endless succession and diversity 
of objects, makes life, which would be otherwise deplorably 
monotonous and tedious, not merely agreeable, but delightful. 

1 should be happy, in my humble way, in any degree to ac- 
complish so desirable a purpose in respect to my kind readers, 
and render the journey which we have undertaken to travel 
together as pleasant as I could wish to make it useful and 
instructive. 

Some men, very much addicted to great refinements in 
casuistry, and especially in respect to the motives of human 
actions, would condemn every motive, but such as are purely 
disinterested, as criminal. I agree with them that the highest 
of human actions must have its origin in the highest and 
purest of all motives ; but I cannot deny the innocence, and, 
more than that, the positive virtue and worth of many actions 
and pursuits, that are prompted by motives which some persons 
would designate as inferior, but which, nevertheless, have their 
origin in our own nature and constitution. Self-interest, profit, 
25* 



294 EUROPKAN AGRICULTUKE. 

accumulation, are all of them reasonable and commendable 
objects, when they do not lead us to invade or infringe upon the 
rights of others, and when our accumulations are used foi 
useful ends. 

I am anxious to vindicate the profession of agriculture from 
every aspersion which may be cast upon it, and to contribute 
my mite to place it in that rank, in the scale of human pursuits, 
which it may justly claim for itself. I may say, with Bacon, 
"that it has the divine sanction," for in the beginning God 
placed man upon the earth to cultivate and make it fruitful. I 
may claim for it, further, that it is an innocent pursuit ; that it 
can do no injury to any one ; and that it invades no man's just 
rights, and prejudices no man's safety, health, peace, or reason- 
able enjoyment. I will add to this, that it is a beneficent 
employment. Whoever cultivates the earth, and covers it with 
rich and golden crops, renders it more beautiful ; whoever causes 
the earth to yield its fruits, increases the means of human com- 
fort and subsistence ; and in proportion as this cultivation is 
improved and skilful, and by such improvement, and such skill, 
the products of the earth are many times increased, so the means 
of human subsistence and comfort, and of subsistence and com- 
fort to a very large portion of the brute creation, are correspond- 
ingly extended. 

I will make no invidious comparisons between agriculture and 
other professions and pursuits of life ; but certainly none is more 
innocent, more honest, more useful, or more rational. That 
happens, in respect to agriculture, which does not equally appear 
in many professions, that its improvements cannot be monopo- 
lized ; they are of necessity exposed. Emulation or compe- 
tition, so often productive of the worst results in many pursuits 
of life, in the improvement of agriculture can produce nothing 
but good. 



XLVII. — AGRICULTURE AS A COMMERCIAL PURSUIT. 

Men, then, may lawfully pursue agriculture under the stimulus 
of profit. In many cases, the ^ains of one man arc made at the 
expense or loss of another. The celebrated Madame Roland 



AGRICULTURE AS A COMMERCIAL. PURSUIT. 295 

used to say " she was always sorry to hear that a man iiad made 
a good bargain, because she knew, in that case, that some person 
must have made a poor one." It is not so in agriculture. The 
more a man increases his wealth by increasing the products ol" 
the earth by a skilful cultivation, so much the more is the whole 
community benefited, excepting only where human laws inter- 
pose to intercept the widest possible diffusion of the bounties of 
Heaven. 

Agriculture, in order to excellence, requires as much the 
stimulus of profit as any other pursuit in life. In England and 
Scotland, it has had that stimulus. It has had governmental 
protection and indulgence, the propriety and justice of which are 
questionable with many men of distinguished wisdom, observa- 
tion, and patriotism, and the expediency of which is capricious, 
being dependent upon circumstances ever liable to fluctuation 
and change. The protection which it has received has been in 
laws prohibiting, under heavy duties, the importation of agricul- 
tural produce from foreign countries, and affording relief from 
various forms of specific taxation, to which other professions or 
conditions are subjected. The horses, dogs, servants, and 
carriages, of all other classes of the community here are taxed ; 
but those of the farmer are exempted from taxation. In the tax 
upon income, the farmer's income is fairly assumed from the rent 
which he pays; but in levying tlie assessment, only half his rent 
is reckoned, so that a farmer paying in fact £400 rent, would 
be considered, for the purpose of taxation, as paying only £200. 
In some respects, it must be confessed that what is called " pro- 
tection " is of a suicidal character. A duty is laid, for example, 
upon imported clover-seed, whereas the amount produced in the 
country, or likely to be produced under all the encouragement 
which its cultivation receives, bears a very small proportion to 
the amount used by the farmers, and used in fact by no other 
persons ; so that the duty paid upon this article is a heavy tax 
upon the many farmers, for the exchisive benefit of the few. 
Great complaint is likewise made, by the farmers, of the intro- 
duction of fat cattle from abroad, which come into injurious com- 
petition with their own stock, and of the admission of foreign 
salted provisions. At the same time, the very provision upon 
which these cattle might, if imported lean, be fatted at home, is 
prohibited. The Indian corn from the United States can be 



296 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

admitted only by the payment of a duty which is ahnost pro- 
hibitory. It cannot be grown in England, though, under some 
extraordinary circumstances in accidental localities, it has occa- 
sionally ripened. If, instead of importing fat cattle from the 
Continent, to supply their markets, they would import lean cattle, 
and at the same time import Indian corn under a low or nominal 
duty, to fatten them with, (and it would be difficult to find a 
substance which, in proportion to its cost, is more nutritious,) it is 
obvious that, besides the profit upon the labor of fattening these 
cattle, they would have the great advantages of their manure — 
certainly a most serious consideration.* 

Agriculture in England appears altogether as a commercial 
pursuit. Where heavy amounts of rent are to be periodically 
and punctually paid, men are compelled to look carefully at 
their expenditures, purchases, and contracts, and their pecuniary 
results. It is by no means so with us in the United States, 
where most farmers are their own landlords and the owners of 
the estates on which they live, and where, if their sales from 
their farms are sufficient to meet the expenses of labor, the light 
taxes of the government, and those supplies for their families 
which the farm itself does not yield, they feel themselves at 
least secure, if they are not satisfied. I design presently to give 
some example of the manner in which farm accounts are kept 
here by the most careful farmers, and which show all the exact- 
ness of mercantile transactions. Indeed, it must be so, or they 
would become involved in inextricable confusion, which would 
surely terminate in bankruptcy and ruin. I know farmers here 
who pay their two hundred, four hundred, six hundred, and one 
thousand pounds' rent ; I have been credibly informed of a 
farmer in Scotland, or on the borders of Scotland and England, 

* The alteration of the tariff, allowing the admission of fat cattle, and foreign 
cheese, Sic, under a reduced duty, does not appear, at present, to have produced 
so great results as was expected, whatever may be the case hereafter. 

The report made to Parliament this present session, (1845,) returns, as imported 
into tlic country from abroad the last year, of cattle, 2,241, (which, if we suppose 
ihcm to average 800 pounds per head, would give only about three fourtJis of a 
pound of meat to each individual ;) of sheep, 1,0G3, (which, at 80 pounds per 
head, — a large average, — would give half an ounce of nmtton to each individual ;) 
of cheese, 11,000 tons, (which would give about one pound per individual.] 
At the same time, the minister in Parliament states that, during tlic last year, the 
population of the kingdom has increased by 380,000! ! 



MARKETS. CATTLE MARKETS. 297 

whose annual rent, at one time, was seven thousand pounds, or 
thirty-five thousand dollars; and it is quite obvious how disas- 
trous must be the consequences, if such properties are managed 
otherwise than with the most scrupulous commercial exactness. 

It cannot be denied that our habits in this respect are alto- 
gether different from what they should be ; that perhaps a 
majority of our farmers keep no accounts whatever, and many 
who keep accounts exhibit only imperfect and slovenly examples. 
It is said, — and it is certainly much to his honor, — that a distin- 
guished individual here, possessing immense estates, but who 
had become somewhat perplexed, not to say embarrassed, in his 
pecuniary affairs, and whose education had not been, in this 
matter, of a character to enable him to manage his affairs to 
advantage, employed an accurate accountant in his house for 
some time, for the sole purpose of learning from him the science 
of book-keeping by double entry. With a natural love of order, 
and a firm resolution, having acquired this knowledge, he was 
soon enabled to bring order out of confusion, and rescue himself 
from embarrassment, and its attendant and inevitable mortifica- 
tions. Such an example as this is certainly worth recording. 

Many farmers, more systematic than others, keep not only an 
account of cost and expenditure, and the amount of sales and 
profits, in the form of a cash account, but likewise a regular 
account with every field and every crop, and I had almost said 
with every animal, taking, as every careful trader or merchant 
will do, a yearly account of stock at a fair valuation. Every 
thing is accounted for ; not so much as a quart of milk is used 
in the family, but it is charged at the current price. I should be 
doing great injustice not to say that I know many examples of 
such carefulness in my own country. Besides the great satisfac- 
tion springing from this exactness, the sense of security and in- 
tegrity, which it brings with it, is invaluable. 



XLVIII. — MARKETS. CATTLE MARKETS. 

The English farmers have great advantages in their markets 
and exchanges ; and in this matter, to a certain extent, we ought 



298 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

to follow them. I do not say these markets are an unmixed 
good ; but the benefits arising from them, I am convinced, 
greatly preponderate over the evils ; and, taking advantage of the 
long experience of others, some of these evils we may either 
remedy or avoid. It would prove highly beneficial to our 
farmers if they could have certain established markets for the 
sale of their produce when it is ready for sale ; if prices could be 
fairly adjusted and equalized ; and especially if the markets 
could be for cash ; and that credit, in all cases excepting for 
very short periods, could be abolished. It would be equally 
useful to them to know where they could buy as well as where 
they could sell ; for they often want lean or store stock for fatten- 
ing, a change of seed for sowing, horses for farm service, young 
stock for grazing, and cows for dairy use. 

With the exception of three or four of our large towns, — as 
Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, — we have no established 
cattle market in the country ; and markets such as Brighton near 
Boston, and the Bull's Head near New York, are almost exclu- 
sively for the sale of fat cattle, sheep, and swine. Our farmers 
sell, as they can, to agents or purchasers travelling through the 
country, and buy as they can, and where, by chance, after taking, 
in many cases, long and expensive journeys, they may find the 
stock which they need. In frequent cases, stock, both cattle 
and swine, are driven through the country and sold to those who 
wish to purchase, as accident may direct. A wool fair or 
market, is not, within my knowledge, held in the country ; nor 
a corn or grain market.* In the purchase of wool, agents scour 
the country, and in general the farmers are quite at their mercy. 
In respect to grain, the farmer carries his wheat, or other grain, 
to the miller or the trader, and must make the best bargain that 
he can. In such case, in the first place, there is no competition ; 
and no possibility of calculating the quantities on hand for sale ; 
and no mode of fixing any general or equal price ; and, indeed, no 

* Howard Street, in Baltimore, affords the only place in the United States 
resembling an exclusive market for the sale of grain or flour; and this is only 
attended by individual purchasers, and is not a meeting of farmers, grain-dealers, 
and millers, coming together on particular days in the week, and at a particular 
hour in the day, to exhibit samples, to collect and impart infonnation respecting 
the grain prospects of tlie year, to discuss prices, and to afford to all parties the 
advantages of comparison and competition. 



FALKIRK TRYST. 299 

certainty to the farmer of finding any market at all. These 
evils might be remedied, and a change effected, to the great 
advantage of buyers and sellers, by the adoption of the system 
of weekly or periodical markets, which prevails throughout 
England and Scotland. Here are wool fairs, for the sale of 
wool, of which samples are exhibited; and corn and grain 
markets, where wheat, barley, oats, rye, beans, and peas, sam- 
ples of which are exhibited, are sold ; and markets for the sale 
of fat cattle, and markets for the sale of lean cattle, and markets 
for the sale of horses, and markets for the sale of sheep and 
lambs, and markets for the sale of cheese and butter ; these 
markets sometimes uniting several objects, or otherwise limited 
to some single object. 

I have attended several of these markets, and some general 
account of them may have an interest with my readers. 



XLIX. — FALKIRK TRYST. 

The largest cattle market in the kingdom, uniting sheep and 
cattle, takes place three times a year, — on the second Tuesday in 
August, September, and October, — at Falkirk in Scotland, about 
equidistant from Edinburgh and Glasgow. This is called the 
Falkirk Tryst, and is held on an extensive plain about three or 
four miles from the town. Here are congregated a vast number 
of horses, cattle, and sheep, and of buyers and sellers. It was 
estimated, when I was there, that the number of cattle then on 
the ground exceeded fifty thousand head, and of sheep seventy 
thousand ; and the banker informed me that the money em- 
ployed in the negotiation would exceed £300,000, or one 
million and a half of dollars. The cattle and sheep exhibited 
at this tryst are almost altogether of the Scotch breeds, and 
many come from the remote Highlands. They are purchased 
to be distributed, in the neighborhood and the southern provinces, 
for wintering, or for fatting for the winter and spring markets. 
Besides cattle and sheep, a large number of horses are brought 
for sale at the same time ; as many as three thousand horses are 



300 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

sometimes offered for sale, and the field presents the appearance 
of a grand military display ; indeed, I have seldom seen a sight 
more imposing. For a week or more before the tryst, the 
roads leading to Falkirk will be fomid crowded with successive 
droves of cattle and sheep, proceeding to this central point : and 
it is extremely curious, on the field, to see with what skill and 
care the different parties and herds are kept together by them- 
selves. In this matter, the shepherds are greatly assisted by 
their dogs, who appear endowed with a sagacity almost human, 
and almost to know every individual belonging to their charge. 
They are sure, with an inflexible pertinacity, to follow and bring 
back a deserter to the flock. Purchasers come in great numbers 
from various parts of the kingdom. Some cattle are bought to 
be re-sold at other and smaller markets. The larger number 
are bought in order to be fed or fatted on the arable farms at the 
south. Cattle which have thus been driven from the extreme 
north are afterwards to be found even in Cornwall, at the 
Land's End. 

The sales in these cases are, of course, for cash. Bankers are 
always present, or near at hand, to facilitate the transactions. 
Here, at a distance little less than four hundred miles from Lon- 
don, bankers go down from London, carrying their funds with 
them, and occupying, during the time of the market, (which con- 
tinues at least four days, ) a temporary stand or office in the field. 



L. — THE BALLINASLOE FAIR. 

At Ballinasloe, in Ireland, a similar fair is held ; though here 
the fair is usually confined to the sale of sheep, and they some- 
times number as many as eighty thousand sheep. A very large 
fair is held in the southern portions of Scotland, for the sale of 
lambs, where the collection is immense. 



THE GALWAY FAIR. 301 



LI. — THE GALWAY FAIR. 



A very large fair is held at Galway, Ireland, in the county of 
Galway, called the Fair of Rose Mount, at which I was present. 
This was chiefly for the sale of ponies, or horses of a small breed, 
with some few cattle. On this occasion, the collection of people 
was surprisingly great ; and I could then well understand what 
was intended by the public meetings in Ireland, called " monster 
meetings," in respect to which, until I saw this collection of 
people, I had always supposed the account of the numbers 
assembled had been much exaggerated. There were here, on 
this occasion, some cattle and sheep ; but there were, also, four 
thousand ponies, the catching of which, for examination or sale, 
as they had, in general, neither bridle nor halter, was sufficiently 
amusing, and I was about to add, sufficiently Irish. The fair 
was held on the sea-shore, where the receding tide left a large 
bed of mud. The ponies, when required to be caught, were 
surrounded and driven into this mud ; and here, in a very ignoble 
way, they were secured, though it was not always without some 
difficulty they were extracted after being caught. 

1. Temperance in Ireland. — There were two circum- 
stances connected with this fair at Rose Mount, a reference to 
which, though not having an immediate connection with the 
principal object of my Reports, yet having a direct bearing upon 
rural manners and customs, may not be considered wholly out of 
place. Here, as well as at the fair at Donnybrook, where im- 
mense numbers of people were congregated, I could observe most 
distinctly the beneficent effects of that powerful reformatory 
movement, which, under the ministry of a good man, worthy of 
the name of an apostle, has effected a glorious moral triumph 
throughout Ireland, such as the pages of history scarcely record. 
I cannot say that at either place there was no drinking and no 
quarrelling ; but there was comparatively little ; and knowing, 
from report and from the natural excitableness of the Irish tem- 
per, what had been usual on such occasions, I could not but feel 
how much had been accomplished, when a foreigner might truly 
say, of such vast and mixed assemblages, they were quiet, orderly, 
and kind ; and a well-behaved man, disposed to keep his elbows 
26 



H02 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

to his own sides, might feel an almost equal security as he would 
feel in church. 

2. The Galway Women. — There was another circumstance, 
perfectly unique in its character, to which I shall be pardoned 
for alluding. There was another species of live stock exhibited 
at the fair, which I cannot say is never seen at such places, but 
which does not always present itself under the same frank cir- 
cumstances. The kind nobleman who accompanied me, and 
who, like many others, noble and simple, whom it has been my 
good fortune to meet with on this side of the water, left no effort 
unessayed for my gratification, after looking at the various 
objects of the fair, asked me, at last, " if I would like to see 
the girls." I confess my natural diffidence at once took the 
alarm ; and my imagination cast a few furtive glances over the 
sea at some precious objects I had left behind. However, upon a 
voyage of curiosity, why should I not see what was to be seen ? 
and, confident that my good friend could have no sinister design, 
I gave him an affirmative reply. Upon inquiring of one of the 
trustees, or masters of the fair, " if the girls had come," we 
were informed they would be there at twelve o'clock. At twelve 
o'clock we went, as directed, to a part of the ground higher than 
the rest of the field, where we found from sixty to a hundred 
young women, well dressed, with good looks and good manners, 
and presenting a spectacle quite worth any civil man's looking 
at, and in which, I can assure my readers, tliere was nothing to 
offend any civil or modest man's feelings. These were the 
marriageable girls of the country, who had come to show them- 
selves, on the occasion, to the young men and others who 
wanted wives ; and this was the plain and simple custom of 
the fair. I am free to say that I saw in the custom no very 
great impropriety. It certainly did not imply that, though they 
were ready to be had, any body could have them. It was not a 
Circassian slave-market, where the richest purchaser could make 
his selection. They were in no sense of the term on sale ; nor 
did they abandon their own right of choice ; but that which is 
done constantly in more refined society, under various covers 
and pretences, — at theatres, balls, and public exhibitions; I will 
say nothing about churches, — was done by these humble and 
unpretending people in this straightforward manner. Between 



THE CJALWAY FAIll, 303 

the noble duchess, who presents a long train of daughters, rus- 
tling in silk, and glittering with diamonds, at the queen's draw- 
ing-room, or the ladies of rank and fashion, who appear at public 
places with all the beauty and splendor of dress and ornament 
which wealth, and taste, and art, and skill, can supply, meaning 
nothing else but " Admire me ! " and these honest Gal way nymphs 
with their fair complexions and their bright eyes, with their 
white frilled caps, and their red cloaks and petticoats, — for this is 
the picturesque costume of that part of the country, — all willing 
to endow some good man with the richest of all the gifts of 
Heaven, a good and faithful wife, I can see no essential dif- 
ference. 

" Let not ambition mock their uselbl toil, 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure." 

I hope I shall bo excused, if I say something more of these 
Galway women. I never saw a more handsome race of people. 
1 have always been a great admirer of beauty — natural beauty, 
personal beauty, mental beauty, moral beauty. For what did 
the Creator make things so beautiful as they are made, but to 
be admired? For what has he endowed man with an exquisite 
.sense of beauty, but that he may cultivate it, and find in it a 
source of pleasure and delight ? As I have grown older, this 
sense of beauty — and I deem it a great blessing from Heaven — 
has become more acute ; and every day of my life, the world and 
nature, nature and art, the animal, the vegeto,ble, and the mineral 
creation, the heavens and the earth, the fields and flowers, men, 
women, and children, wit, genius, learning, moral purity and 
moral loveliness, deeds of humanity, fortitude, patience, heroism, 
disinterestedness, have seemed to me continually more and more 
beautiful, as, at the setting of the sun, man looks out upon a 
Avorld made richer and more glorious by his lingering radiance, 
and skies lit up with an unwonted gorgeousness and splendor. 
But the human countenance seems in many cases to concentrate 
all of physical, of intellectual, and of moral beauty, which can 
be combined in one bright point. Why should it not, therefore, 
be admired ? In the commingled beams of kindness and good- 
humor brightening up the whole face, like heat-lightning in 
summer on the western sky ; or in the flashes of genius sparkling 
in the eyes with a splendor which the fires of no diamond can 
rival : or in the whole soul of intelligence, and noble thoughts, 



304 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



and heroic resolution, and strong and lofty passion glowing in 
the countenance, — there is a manifestation of creative power, of 
divine skill, unrivalled in any spot or portion of the works 
of God. 

The extraordinary personal beauty of these Galway women 
was not mere imagination on my part, nor the result of any 
undue susceptibility. I said to the coachman, as we passed 
through this part of the country, that I never saw a handsomer 
people. " That," said he, " travellers always remark ; " and 
when I left the country, in casting my eye over a recent book 
of Travels in Ireland, I found the author's impressions corre- 
sponded with my own. Tradition says that a colony of 
Milesians formerly settled in this part of the country, and that 
the remains of this race, or the offspring of the intermixture of 
them with the native tribes, present these results. This is a 
remarkable fact, and not without its bearing upon one great 
branch of agricultural improvement. 



LII. — SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 

The great market for cattle, in England, perhaps the greatest 
in the world, is at Smithfield, in London. This market is prin- 
cipally for fat cattle and sheep, and for cows. It is held weekly, 
in the centre, and in one of the most crowded parts, of this great 
metropolis. Monday is the day of general sale for fat cattle and 
sheep ; Tuesday for hay and straw ; Thursday is again a day of 
sale for hay and straw ; and Friday for cattle, sheep, swine, and 
particularly for the sale of milch cows, and at 2 o'clock for scrub 
horses and asses. This day is not so large a market as Monday, 
and embraces the cattle that were left over on the Monday's 
market. 

The market opens at daylight, at all seasons of the year, and 
closes at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, at which time every thing, 
sold or unsold, must be removed. The sheep and swine are 
enclosed in pens, railed in with wood, and containing seldom 
more than fifteen sheep in a pen. The cattle, as far as the 



smithfip:lu, London. 305 

accommodations will admit, are tied, by the horns or neck, to 
long railings, which extend on the outside of the market-place, 
and likewise down the centre of the area. Between the rows 
of animals tied to these rails and facing each other, there is a 
passage-way ; and there are, likewise, open spaces behind them 
and between them, so as to enable the purchasers to see the 
stock. In respect to the supernumerary animals, or those for 
which, for want of room, no tying-place is to be had, they are 
often driven into small circles, and, by a great deal of severity 
and cruelty, they are made, after being dreadfully beaten over 
the head and eyes, to stand with their heads turned in towards 
the centre of the circle. The poor animals, finding themselves 
in so novel a situation, stunned with a din and noise which no 
language can describe, and exhausted by fatigue and terror, are 
often glad to be let alone, and to remain quiet in situations, into 
which they may be forced, which would otherwise be scarcely 
endurable. Man is almost sure to be a tyrant, when possessed 
with absolute power ; and there is good reason to believe that he 
will have a heavy account to settle hereafter with the brute 
animals which he has most cruelly abused.* 

It is obvious that it would be difficult to make any exact 
assortment, or classification, of the animals in the case, according 
'0 their different breeds. The sheep are placed in one part of 
the market. The cattle occupy another. The cows, and calves, 
and swine, occupy other separate positions. But no classification 
of the beasts into the different breeds of Short-Horns, Herefords,. 
Devons, or West Highlanders, or Scots, is attempted, although,, 
from the fact that individual farmers generally limit themselves 
to one species of stock, the contributions of different individuals, 
standing by themselves, present a sort of classification ; and so 
give a better opportunity to an intelligent observer to compare 
the different breeds with each other. 

* It is said tliat much of the cruelty, which was formerly practised in these cases 
13 now prevented by the influence of the Animal's Friend Society, an association 
quite numerous, whose exclusive object is to prevent cruelty to dumb beasts, and 
tiius to protect those who are unable to protect themselves. They have numerous 
agents, and prosecute, without fear or favor, every case of inhumanity, — for it is a 
great misnomer to call such cases brutality, — which comes under their notice, de- 
serving censure or punishment. It is, undoubtedly, greatly owing to their exer- 
tions, that the odious practices of cock-fighting and dog-fighting are now not prac- 
tised ; or, if practised, conducted in the most secret manner. 
26* 



306 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

1. Forms of Business in Smithfield. — It is not here, as it is 
with us, that a drover goes through the country collecting, on his 
route, cattle from the different farmers, as he may chance to find 
them ; but usually the farmer himself sends them to Smithfield, 
where they are put for sale into the hands of an accredited agent, 
whose commission for sale is established and understood. This 
commission is not a percentage upon the amount of sale, but so 
much per head. These, of course, are persons well known, and 
whose shrewdness and skill are undoubted. In the most extensive 
transactions of buying and selling, no paper is passed ; but the 
price of the stock on sale being inquired, if the bargain is struck, 
the buyer and seller merely touch each other's hand, and there is 
no retraction. It is highly creditable to the commercial charac- 
ter of the country, and to the general integrity which prevails 
among the persons concerned in this great market, that, as I am 
informed by an individual familiar for years with the most ex- 
tensive transactions in this place, a failure to fulfil these engage- 
ments, though no paper is passed between the parties, is of very 
rare occurrence. 

In the sale of sheep and cattle, the business is always trans- 
acted through an accredited and established salesman, who has 
his regular commissions upon every animal sold. The sales are 
always for cash, unless the salesman himself chooses to assume 
the responsibility of giving credit, and there are always banking 
houses in the vicinity to render the usual facilities for business. 

The customary commission for the sale of an ox of any value 
is four shillings, or about ninety-six cents ; of a sheep eight 
pence or sixteen cents. The city receives a toll, upon every 
beast exposed to sale in Smithfield, of one penny per head, and 
upon sheep at the rate of one shilling or twenty-four cents per 
score. 

The value of the services of an intelligent, experienced, arid 
honest salesman, is very great to the farmer, and much beyond 
the compensation ordinarily demanded. He is familiar with the 
state of the market, with the supply to be expected, with the 
prices generally taken, and with the characters of the persons 
with whom he has to deal, who know him as well. The 
farmer, going into the market to sell his cattle for himself, is 
liable to various impositions, of the extraordinary ingenuity and 
coolness of which, many experiments will not be necessary to 



SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 307 

convince him. It might happen, that, instead of returning home 
with bank notes and sovereigns in his pocket, he might, like 
Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield, bring back only a quantity of 
green spectacles. 

The state of the market, the current demand, the supply to 
be expected, together with the state of the dead-meat market, 
and what supplies of meat already killed are to be expected, are 
all matters to be taken into calculation. These are all inquired 
into, and well known to a thoroughly intelligent and expe- 
rienced salesman, but are very imperfectly understood by any 
other persons than those who make it their constant business to 
become acquainted with them. The division of labor is carried 
to a great extent in all the business pursuits of this great country, 
and, while it seems unfriendly to that general tact with which 
persons among us apply themselves to a great variety and 
diversity of pursuits, must obviously contribute to a high degree 
of skill or improvement in the particular art or profession where 
it is applied. 

2. Weights and Measures. — Animals in Smithfield are almost 
always sold on the hoof; yet an estimate is formed of their 
weight, and the price given is calculated upon the number of 
pounds the animal is computed to yield after being slaughtered. 
The gross hundred weight of one hundred and twelve pounds is 
still used in England ; but the calculations are generally made in 
stones of eight pounds. By an act of Parliament, the stone of 
fourteen pounds is required to be adopted in the reckoning in the 
market ; but custom in this, as in many other cases, defies the 
authority of the government, and eight pounds continue to be 
reckoned as the Smithfield stone. 

The different measures and weights used in different parts of 
the kingdom are extremely inconvenient, and sadly perplexing 
to a stranger. The English, the Scotch, and the Irish acre are 
each different from each other. Grain is, in different places, sold 
by the bushel, by the quarter, by the comb, by the boll, and by 
the load ; and a load is in some places four, in others three 
bushels. A Scotch pint is two English quarts. In Covent 
Garden market, two pottles of strawberries, containing little 
more than a pint each, are called a gallon. Potatoes are some- 
times sold by weight, and sometimes by the barrel ; in some 



308 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

places by the stone of fourteen pounds, in some by the stone of 
sixteen pounds. A dozen of eggs is in some places fifteen. 1 
may perhaps be asked, if this is not in Ireland ; but I shall not 
j;ay, excepting to add, as far as my experience goes, fifteen to a 
dozen would be a very proper index of Irish hospitality and 
kindness. In one market, in Yorkshire, a pound of butter is 
twenty ounces avoirdupois ; in Staffordshire, eighteen ounces. 
In Norwich, butter is sold by the pint ; in Cambridge, it is 
literally sold by the yard, being made into rolls of a certain size, 
and measured off in feet and inches. In one of our hot days in 
July, with the glass at 95°, our market-men. at this rate, would 
have little difficulty in giving full measure. I have already 
alluded to the force of custom. It has many advantages, but 
why should it stand in the way of improvement? The preva- 
lence of an unmeaning or a useless custom has nothing to 
recommend it. Yet I believe I shall be doing no injustice to the 
English, — the last thing certainly which I should wish to do to a 
people whom I so highly respect and love, — - if I Avere to say, 
many of them greatly prefer antiquity to utility, and will hold on 
to an ancient custom with the pertinacity of a drowning man, 
though its meaning has entirely ceased, and its observance is on 
every account inconvenient and burdensome. With such persons, 
all argument on the subject of improvement is idle ; the concep- 
tion has never yet dawned upon them. 

Such a varying standard of weight, or measure, or value, 
venders many statements quite unintelligible to a stranger or 
one ignorant of local customs, and comparisons and calculations 
all but impossible. 

3. Weight of Animals, Mode of ascertaining. — The 
weight of an animal in Smithfield is reckoned by the weight 
of the four quarters. The hide, rough tallow, and offal, are not 
taken into the account. There are rules given by which to 
determine the weight of animals, when slaughtered, by external 
measurement of them when alive. The salesmen in Smithfield 
do not rely upon these rules, but estimate the weight of cattle 
by the eye ; and mere judgment, founded upon long practice, 
evinces most extraordinary approaches to exactness, seldom vary- 
ing but few pounds. The rules, however, to which I refer, have 
a value to persons who are not accustomed to estimate by the 



SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 301* 

eye ; and a series of tables have been constructed upon these 
rules, which, if they could be relied upon, would be of consid- 
erable use in private practice.* The girth of the ox (for it does 
not apply to cows as well as to oxen, as their shape is much less 
regular) is to be taken directly behind the shoulder, and the 
length is to be measured from the front of the shoulder-bone to 
the end of the bone on the rump, where a line dropping down at 
right angles with the line on the back would just clear the 
thigh, or buttock. Then, according to a rule given me by Lord 
Spencer, " Reduce the feet into inches ; multiply the girth by 
the length, and that product by the fraction .001944, which 
will give the weight in pounds ; " or, in another form, as the rule 
is quoted by Mr. Hillyard, " Estimating the weight of a cubic 
inch of meat at 171 grains, then girth 7 feet 6 inches, and 
length 5 feet 4 inches, gives 41,235x^*5 cubic inches, which, 
multiplied by 171, gives 7,051,328 grains, equal to 125 stones, 
7 pounds, of 8 pounds to the stone." Another mode of estimat- 
ing the weight of cattle is to ascertain their live weight upon a 
platform balance, common enough in the United States. Then, 
according to some authorities, every 112 pounds live weight 
will produce 72 pounds of beef; but a coarse, large-boned ox 
will not produce so much. Another way is to deduct one third 
of the live weight, which is commonly deemed a fair allowance ; 
and also, if the beast is not quite fat, from 2J to 5 per cent, in 
addition. Another able authority states, " that the proportion 
which the dead weight bears to the live weight of animals was 
reckoned at one half the live weight ; but subsequent experi- 
ments in the more improved breed of animals show that this is 
much too small a proportion, it being more correctly represented 
by the fractional quantity .605, the weight of the animal being 
assumed as 1. This would be about three fifths for the dead 
weight. The gross weight of the animal being then multiplied 
by .605, will give the result in the same denomination in which 
the gross weight is given." It is obvious, however, that such 
rules can be little more than an approximation to exactness, 
since the circumstances under which the animal is weighed, 



* These tables are to be found at large in Mr. Hillyard's useful and sensible 
book, entitled " Practical Farming and Grazing," a fourth edition of which ap- 
peared in London in 1844. 



310 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



whether upon a full or an empty stomach, must essentially affect 
the result. It will be interesting, I am persuaded, to many of my 
readers, if I give an account of the weights of some of the most 
remarkable animals which, within a few years past, have been 
exhibited at the show of the Smithfield Club, which takes place 
annually in December ; and the account, besides giving the 
weight of the animals, will show, at the same time, how nearly 
the weight calculated by rule, and the weight estimated by the 
judgment of experienced men, corresponded with the actual 
weight, ascertained upon the animals' being slaughtered. 













1 


STONE OF EIGHT POUNDS 




YEAR. 


GIRTH. 


LENGTH 










Computed 


Estimated 


Butcher's 






Ft. ' 


In. 


Ft. " 


in. 


Weight. 


Weight. 


Weight. 


Lord Spencer's Durham ox, . . . 


1828 


9. 


2 


6. 





211 


210 


210 


The Scotch heifer, 


1830 


7. 


8 


5. 


7 


138 


140 


138 


Mr. Townsend's Durham heifer. 


1833 


8. 


3 


5. 


9 


164 


175 


176i 


Mr. Baker's Durham ox, 


1833 


8. 


9i 


6. 





195 


205 


206^ 


Mr. Buckley's Hereford ox, . . . 


1833 


1^ 


11 


5. 


5 


143 


150 


144 


Lord Spencer's Durham ox, . . . 


1834 


9. 


7 


6. 


1 


236 


240 


236 


Lord Oxford's Hereford ox, . . . 


1834 


9. 


4 


5. 


10 


214 


222 




Mr. Hilly ard's do. heifer, . 


1834 


8. 


7 


5. 


7 


175 


184 


192 


Lord Brownlow's do. do. . . 


18.34 


8. 





5. 


9 


155 


164 




Marquis of Exeter's do. do. . . 


1835 


7. 


11 


5. 





134 


138 


im 


Lord Spencer's do. do. . . 


1835 


7. 


8 


5. 


3 


130 


138 




Lord Spencer's Durham ox, . . . 


1835 


9. 


2 


6. 





211 


218 


210 


Lord Spencer's do. do. . . . 


1836 


9. 


2 


G. 


1 


215 


222 


218 


Marquis of Tavistock's do. do. 


1836 


8. 


10 


5. 


8 


187 


196 




Lord Leicester's Devon ox, . . . 


1837 


8. 


1 


5. 


2 


142 


145 


152 


Mr. Giblet's one year old Devon, 


1837 


8. 


4 


5. 


5 


158 


162 


166.4 


Mr. Baker's heifer, 


1837 


7. 


11 


5. 


6 


148 


152 


152.3 


Mr. Hillyard's I>evon ox, .... 


ia38 


8. 


1 


5. 


2 


142 


142 


139.6 


Marquis of Exeter's Durham ox, 


1841 


8. 


9 


5. 


9 


185 


185 


185 


Duke of Bedford's Hereford ox. 


1841 


8. 


9 


5. 


9 


185 


185 


180 



The practice at Brighton, Massachusetts, is to sell the animal 
at a certain rate per pound, or per hundred pounds. The animal 
is then slaughtered, and the return of his weight made to the 
owner or drover. The owner or drover does not see his animal 
killed or weighed. The market takes place on Monday, but he 
is commonly detained until Thursday, before the weight of the 
animal is ascertained, and he receives his pay. This, besides its 
expense, is on every account a serious evil. It cannot be denied, 
likewise, that the temptations to a fraudulent return of the 



SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 311 

weight are very strong, and that much dissatisfaction, very 
often without question groundless, frequently arises. It is 
surprising how near to exactness the judgment of an inteUigent 
and experienced man approaches ; but as this method is Uable to 
the objection of a man's being judge in his own case, it would 
seem very desirable that some less exceptionable method should 
be adopted. I can think of no one more eligible than that of 
ascertaining the live weight on a platform balance, and then 
adopting some general rule as to the allowance to be made for 
the difference between the live and the dead weight. A rate of 
discount or allowance, founded upon repeated and exact experi- 
ments, would be equally fair for both parties. The adoption of 
such a rule would be of the greatest service in enabling the 
drover or owner to close his business in one day, and would, in 
general, be much more satisfactory to the farmer, who sends his 
cattle to market, and is not always without his suspicions of an 
imperfect return. I offer these suggestions with great diffidence, 
especially when I read, in a letter addressed to me by a practical 
man, " that there is no mathematical rule upon which he places 
any reliance ; that he has often been invited to test the correct- 
ness of measuring beasts, and also to determine their dead, from 
ascertaining their live weight, but has found that no confidence 
can be placed upon such rules." He adds, "that after handling 
beasts to ascertain their fatness, the mind, by practice, is in- 
tuitively impressed with about the weight of the four quarters, 
exclusive of any offal ; and that experienced men can tell the 
weight of beasts, on an average, within three stone of eight 
pounds, and of sheep within two pounds." I believe all this ; 
and it presents a beautiful example of what the mind is capable 
of, and of what it may be brought to under careful training and 
long practice. We certainly know that the mind is a very good 
clock, and measures the time with wonderful exactness, both 
sleeping and waking. I have been often struck with the extra- 
ordinary precision with which the poor blind horses, which move 
the ferry-boat between Troy and the Albany side of the river, 
measure the distance Avhich they have come, and after making a 
pause just before they touch the opposite shore, seem to know 
exactly how many more strokes or turns to give to the paddles, 
in order to reach it. I hope I shall not offend the pride of any 
of my readers, by this comparison of the brute with the human 



312 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

mind. Man is very apt to think himself the only knowing 
animal upon the earth ; and I have no doubt that some of the 
lower animals have the same self-conceit. It is interesting to 
see reason and moral sentiment, the noblest gift of Heaven, any 
where diffused, and even in the most humble forms. Such indi- 
cations strengthen the claims which all sentient beings have 
upon our kindness and respect ; and several of the lower animals 
— if any being is to be considered inferior who accomplishes the 
{rue purposes of his creation — read many striking moral lessons 
to mankind. 

The character of a salesman in Smithfield Market, for judg- 
ment and integrity, is of immense importance to him. He is 
forbidden by law to purchase on his own account ; and it is 
clearly most important that his priv^ate interest should not con- 
flict with that of his employer. But it is easy to see the futility 
of all laws to make men honest, where evasions in a variety of 
forms are so practicable. Personal character, and a healthful 
state of public opinion, form, in such cases, the great security. 

4. Amount of Business. — The amount of business transacted 
in Smithfield is enormous. It is estimated at not less than 
£100,000, or half a million of dollars, every week. The Smith- 
field Market is certainly one of the great sights of London. 
The returns of the market on the Christmas week of 1844, 
when I was present, gave 5000 beasts and 47,000 sheep. This 
was considered the largest market ever remembered ; and the 
extraordinary quantity of stock was doubtless, in some measure, 
to be attributed to the severe drought of the preceding summer, 
and the consequent scarcity of fodder, which compelled the 
farmers to lessen their stock. The largest return of stock 
ascertained for any year, between the years 1821 and 1842, was 
in the year 1838, and was. 

Of cattle, 183,362 

Of sheep, 1,403,400 

In the year 1830, there were sold in Smithfield, 

Beasts, 159,907 

Sheep, 1,287,071 

Pigs, 254,672 

Calves, 22,500 



SMITHFIELB, LONDON. 313 

In the year 1842, 

Of cattle, 175,347 

Of sheep, 1,468,960 

The supplies since that have not diminished. But this by no 
means comprehends the whole supply of provision to London, 
as immense amounts of slaughtered meat are brought constantly 
to the dead market, from distant parts of the kingdom, by the 
innumerable steam conveyances, which have so much increased 
the facilities of access to the metropolis. We need scarcely be 
surprised at any distance from which it may be brought, since I 
have seen Leicester or Southdown mutton, killed and dressed in 
England, for sale in the market at Boston. In spite of the 
doctrines of restricted or free trade, the benevolent mind cannot 
help rejoicing in a facility of intercourse, which renders the 
mutual interchange of the respective adv^antages and blessings 
of ditFerent countries and climates so convenient, and thus does 
away forever with all that fear of want or famine which, in 
former times, so often followed any extraordinary contingency 
of the seasons. The quantity of meat, and that principally 
mutton, brought from six different ports in Scotland to London, 
was ascertained, in one case, to be about 2364 tons in six months ; 
besides a very large amount of live stock. It has probably 
greatly increased with the opening of every new means of 
conveyance. 

The friend to whom I am indebted for much of the above 
information, in regard to Smithfield, states the average weekly 
sale of beasts in Smithfield at about 3000, and of sheep, about 
30,000 ; of calves, about 300 ; of pigs, about 500. At the dead 
market, about 3000 sheep are sold weekly. Of the live stock, the 
beasts average from £15 to £18 per head, and sheep 30 shillings. 
A pound in this case may be most conveniently reckoned at five 
dollars, and a shilling, therefore, at a quarter of a dollar. The 
average age of beasts sold in Smithfield is from two to three 
years, and of sheep from fifteen months to two years. It is 
not to be supposed that these returns by any means embrace all 
the beasts slaughtered, or the meat consumed in the metropolis 
and its vicinity ; for great numbers are sold before they reach 
the market, and are therefore not reported. Vast amounts, like- 
wise, are imported from Ireland ; and the cotters of this fertile 
27 



314 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

but wretched country, where a large portion of the inhabitants 
are, for a considerable part of the year, upon the borders of 
starvation, are obliged to see their only pig — the companion and 
pet of their children — and their only calf or steer, sent off to 
other markets to fill other mouths. Smithfield, though much 
the largest, is only one of the markets of the country ; but the 
immense supplies which are here furnished must give some 
idea of the improvement and degree of perfection of the agricul- 
ture of a country from which they are drawn. 

The poultry markets, and the markets for game, are also most 
extensive. The fish markets in London seem to me unsur- 
passed for their excellence, and certainly embrace a great 
variety of the very best kinds. These, of course, furnish their 
full proportion of the supplies of London. 

5. Character and Q,uality of Stock. — The quality of the 
cattle exhibited in Smithfield market, of sheep in particular, is 
extraordinary for its fatness. The show of the Smithfield Club, 
which is held in December, under the patronage of some of the 
first noblemen in the kingdom, may very properly be denom- 
inated a show of monstrosities in the way of fatness. They are 
moving elephantine masses of flesh, and if, as according to 
modern chemical philosophy, all fat is the result of disease, they 
are far from being attractive to any but the grossest epicure- 
No advantage can come from rearing animals to such an inor- 
dinate degree of fatness, save in the matter of showing what the 
art of man can accomplish in respect to the animal economy, 
and also that of testing the nutritious and fattening qualities of 
different kinds of food. 

In respect to the weight of the animals in Smithfield, an indi- 
vidual familiar with the subject, and in whom I have great con- 
fidence, states that the beasts from two to three years old will 
average from 85 to 100 stone of 8 pounds, or from 680 to 800 
pounds, when dressed — that is, the four quarters. Others place 
it not higher than 82 stone, or 6.56 pounds ; of calves, 150 
pounds ; of pigs, 100 pounds ; of sheep, 90 pounds. Calves are 
seldom sent to market under six or eight weeks old ; and large 
hogs are never seen in the market. If we may rely upon ancient 
authorities, within a century past the weight of animals in 
Smithfield Market has nearly doubled ; perhaps more than 



SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 315 

doubled. It is said that, in 1710, tiic average weight of beasts 
was 370 pounds ; of calves, 50 pounds ; of sheep and lambs, 28 
pounds. This increase of size is probably attributable in the 
main to two great causes, which deserve serious consideration. 
The first is, the improvement of the breeds of cattle. A person 
has only to go into Smithfield Market to remark the perfection 
to which the art of breeding has been carried, and the distinct- 
ness of the lines by which the different breeds are separated 
from each other. Three great points seem to have been gained. 
The first is, great size and weight have been attained ; the 
second is, the tendency to fatten, and to keep in fat condition, 
has been greatly cultivated ; the third is, that the animal arrives 
early at maturity. All these are most important points ; the last 
certainly not least ; for if an animal can be brought to the same 
size and weight, without doubling the expense, at eighteen 
months old, that he could formerly be made to reach not sooner 
than at three years of age, the quick returns, so essential in all 
commercial transactions, are secured, and as the expenses are 
lessened, the profits are greatly increased. Nothing strikes one 
Avith more surprise than to see what, in the improvement of the 
appearance and constitution of the stock, intelligence, skill, and 
perseverance can effect. I may here with propriety quote what 
my friend, before referred to, says in relation to the quality of 
the stock in Smithfield. " I fear many of our breeds of beasts 
and sheep are becoming worse than they were, from an exces- 
sive attention to neatness and symmetry of form, so that bulk 
and quantity of good flesh have been too much overlooked. 
Our Hereford beasts are much inferior to what they were ; also 
other breeds of beasts ; and particularly some breeds of sheep. 
Some persons are so very particular about purity of blood, that 
they often run into great error ; their stock losing flesh, constitu- 
tion, and size. This is particularly observable in Leicester 
sheep. So wedded are some persons to this breed, and to what 
they call purity of blood, that their sheep keep dwindling into 
very insignificant stock. I am satisfied that we cannot go on 
breeding in and in, without losing size, quality, and worth." I 
give these opinions of a very practical man, as familiar with the 
Smithfield Market as any man in England, without endorsing 
them, and leave them to speak for themselves. 

The second great cause of the improvement of the stock in 



316 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Smithfield Market is, the improvement of the husbandry of tlie 
country, particularly by the introduction of what is called the 
alternate husbandry, and the cultivation of green crops. The 
cultivation of turnips and swedes is comparatively modern ; and 
perhaps no single circumstance has effected so great an improve- 
ment in the agricultural condition of the country. Formerly, 
cattle were fatted, if fatted at all, upon grass and hay, and these 
of inferior kinds ; the store stock were wintered upon straw, and 
came to the spring in such a condition that the greater part of 
the summer was required, in order to recover what they had 
lost in the winter. Now, the introduction of the artificial 
grasses, clover, and rye-grass, the growing of vetches, rape, 
turnips, swedes, carrots, and mangel-win-zel, and the use of 
oil-cake, have multiplied in an extraordinary manner the re- 
sources of the farmer ; and the practice of folding his sheep, and 
stall-feeding his fatting beasts, give him a command of feed, and, 
if I may so say, such a control over the season, that the results 
are most remarkable in the supply of the market, at all times of 
the year, with animals of the finest description. 

I may be inquired of, what 1 think of the English meats. 
The fatness of the beef and mutton is most remarkable. I have 
seen single beasts in the United States as fat as any I have seen 
here ; but these are comparatively rare exceptions ; and here the 
general character of the beasts and sheep is, in this respect, most 
striking. It would, however, I fear, be hopeless to attempt to 
persuade an Englishman of that which is my honest conviction — 
that our meats are sweeter to the taste than those which I have 
eaten here. Our poultry is incomparably better. An English- 
man will be likely to set this down as mere prejudice, which 
possibly it may be, for who can escape such prejudices, or be 
fully conscious of them when they exist ? — but I believe it is not 
prejudice, but Indian corn, (the grain upon which our animals are 
fatted,) which gives to their meat a peculiar sweetness, which is 
not produced by other feed. Our beef animals are not killed 
until from five to seven years old, and our sheep seldom until 
three years old. Here sheep are killed at about fifteen months, 
and beasts at two years and upwards. The flesh of these young 
animals is wanting in that consistency which more age would 
give, though an extreme on the other side, and the hard-working 
of our oxen until eight and ten years old, is liable to give a 



SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 317 

toughness to the meat, which would not be found if fatted at an 
earher, though not a very early, period. If price is to be taken 
as a correct index of quality, then it will be found that the beef 
of the small West Highland cattle, and the mutton of the Welsh 
sheep, are decidedly superior to any other, the prices which they 
command being always higher than others. The smaller size, 
and the better intermixture of lean and fat meat which they 
present, render them, more convenient for family dishes, and 
more attractive than those immense rumps of beef, and saddles 
dnd legs of mutton, covered with an inordinate thickness of fat, 
which, by their grossness, repel any but the most inveterate 
epicure — the animal who seems to live only to eat. 

My conviction is, that there is no agricultural improvement in 
England so great and striking as that which has been effected 
in their live stock : I refer particularly to its size, aptitude to 
fatten, early maturity, symmetry, and beauty. Of the milking 
and dairy properties of their stock, I shall speak hereafter. I 
must include, likewise, in my commendation, their horses — work- 
ing, carriage, pleasure, and race horses. It could scarcely be 
expected to be otherwise. The highest degree of skill has been 
concentrated upon these objects ; and this skill has been stim- 
ulated by premiums of the most honorable and liberal character, 
and by expenditures absolutely enormous. The splendid and 
magnificent premiums of gold and silver plate for successful 
competition, which one sees on the tables and sideboards of the 
fortunate winners all over the country, and which are exhibited 
with an honest pride, while they display the highest triumphs 
of artistical skill and taste, serve only to fan the flame which 
they enkindle, and to quicken an ambition, which never can be 
quiet while a more distant point remains to be attained. How 
happy would it be for the world, if human ambition were always 
directed to objects so innocent and commendable ; to purposes 
which benefit, instead of those which curse, the world ; to the 
triumphs of genius, industry, and science, over the elements of 
nature, instead of the bloody conquests of power, avarice, and 
despotism, over human comfort, liberty, and life ! 

6. Smithfield by Night. — Smithfield by night, and in a 
dark night, presents a most extraordinary scene, which, though I 
have witnessed it, it would be very difficult for me adequately 

27* 



318 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

to describe. A large proportion of the stock arrive in the 
neighborhood of London either on Saturday or early on Sunday, 
where they are fed in the fields, or the extensive lairs prepared 
for their reception. These lairs, especially Laycock's at Isling- 
ton, are well worth a visit, being composed of open yards and 
most extensive sheds, covering fourteen acres of ground, fur- 
nished with watering troughs and mangers, and divided into 
different compartments. Here the farmer or drover is supplied 
with hay or straw for his stock, not by the day or night, but by 
the truss, the hay which is sold in London being always put up 
and tied in bundles of 56 pounds each — certainly an excellent 
arrangement, which, while it prevents all temptations to waste, 
requires a purchaser to pay only for that which he has. The 
cattle here get a little rest and refreshment in these stalls after 
their long journeys ; and here they are visited by the salesmen 
preparatory to their appearance in the market on Monday. It 
would not be surprising, likewise, and not altogether unlike 
some occurrences on the other side of the water, if some pur- 
chasers, with an acquisitiveness not disturbed by religious 
scruples, should occasionally make their way there and an- 
ticipate the bargains of the ensuing day.* About midnight the 
different detachments, almost treading upon the heels of each 
other, begin to make their way to the place of rendezvous 
through the winding streets of this wilderness of houses, and 
enter the great market-place by different and opposite avenues, 
and, like hostile parties, often meet each other in the very centre. 
Then comes the conflict : the driving of so many thousand of 
sheep into their several pens ; the assorting and tying up, or arran- 
ging, so many thousand of cattle, driven into a state of terror and 
frenzy by the men and dogs ; the struggles of the different owners 
or drovers to keep their own and prevent their intermingling 
with others ; the occasional leaping the barriers, and the escape 
of some straggler, who is to be brought back by violence ; the 
sounds of the heavy blows over the heads, and horns, and sides, 
of the poor crazed animals ; the shrieks of the men ; the yelling 
and barking of hundreds of dogs, who look after the sheep and 



* I will say, however, by the way, and as an act of simple justice, that London, 
OS well as every other part of England which I have visited, is remarkable for its 
eober and decorous observance of the Lord's Dav, 



SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 319 

cattle with a ferocity perfectly terrific, and a sagacity almost 
human ; the bellowing of the cattle, and the bleating of the 
calves ; forming, if the expression is allowable, a concert of dis- 
cordant sounds utterly indescribable and hideous ; and in the 
midst of all this confusion, the darting about of hundreds of 
torches, carried in the hand by men looking for their cattle and 
sheep, and seeking to identify their marks, — all together present 
an exhibition for which it certainly would be difficult to find a 
parallel, and sufficiently gratifying to the lovers of the pic- 
turesque in human affairs. The calves and pigs enter the 
market in a more aristocratic style, in carriages and vans, with 
the regular attendance of out-riders and footmen ; but in spite of 
this luxury, after the example of some of their betters, these 
indulgences do not appear to lessen or quiet all their complaints, 
and they add their portion to the general harmony. Their 
owners are quite wise to carry, instead of attempting to drive, 
them ; for I think no human power would be sufficient to drive 
and assort a herd of pigs, coming into a scene of this description. 
When the day dawns, however, every thing is found in order ; 
all the different parties at their respective posts ; and the 
immense business is transacted with a despatch, an efficiency, 
and precision, Avhich are quite remarkable. 

7. Attempted Removal of the Market from the City. — 
It certainly is not a little surprising that a market of this descrip- 
tion should be held in the midst of such a city as this. Its name 
implies that, in former times, it was held in the outskirts of the 
town ; but that time must have long since passed away, and the 
" field," so called, is now surrounded with miles of houses in every 
direction, and in the very centre of a most densely-packed popu- 
lation. It would seem, at first sight, that the obvious and innu- 
merable discomforts of such an arrangement, and the danger to 
human person and life from driving so many beasts through the 
crowded streets, were sufficient reasons for transferring the whole 
business to a more retired and convenient situation in the neigh- 
borhood of London. A wealthy individual by the name of 
Perkins, under the influence of the best of motives, made an 
attempt to do this, and erected an establishment for a market at 
Islington, about two miles from the centre of London, which is 
well worth looking at for the completeness and excellence of its 



320 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

arrangements. The cost of the establishment is said to have 
been £ 100,000, or half a million of dollars. It forms a hollow 
square, and embraces a space of more than twenty acres, com 
pletely enclosed by high brick walls, which form the backs of 
deep sheds, slated, and open in front, furnished with mangers and 
with water troughs supplied from two very large tanks in the 
centre of the yard, which are kept constantly filled by machinery 
from wells sunk in the neighborhood. The sheds are capable of 
accommodating 4000 beasts ; and here they might remain from 
day to day until sold, without inconvenience. In the centre of 
this immense quadrangle are four extensive squares, all neatly 
paved with flat stones, and divided into several compartments, 
railed in with neat iron railings, and capable of accommodating 
40,000 sheep. Other pens are constructed for calves, pigs, and 
other animals usually brought to market ; and all are arranged in 
the most simple and convenient method, with ample passages 
furnishing easy access to every part of the enclosure. Besides 
these, there are convenient and ample offices for all the various 
clerks, salesmen, bankers, «fcc., connected with the business ; and 
it was designed to erect commodious hotels for the acommoda- 
tion of persons attending the market, and extensive slaughter- 
houses for the killing of the cattle, directly in the neighborhood. 
The whole space is entered under a handsome archway ; and for 
its particular purposes, it would be difficult to conceive of any 
thing more commodious or better arranged. 

In spite of all these obvious advantages, the market could not 
be removed from Smithfield. The persons in the neighborhood 
of the old market whose business and profits were intimately 
connected with it, opposed its removal. There was fear of a 
rival market being got up on the other side of the city. The 
city would lose the tolls, which are now received at Smithfield, 
and which, in the course of the year, make up no inconsiderable 
revenue. The meat, if the animals were slaughtered out of thd 
town, would, of necessity, have to be conveyed to the city in 
carts, whereas, now, much of it is killed directly in the neigh- 
borhood of the market. These and many other reasons were 
urged, but, perhaps, would not have availed, excepting for the 
fact that Smithfield was discovered to be a chartered market, for 
the sale of cattle ; and the twelve judges of the high courts 
decided, upon consultation, that this charter could not be 



SMITHFIELD, LONDON. 321 

abrogated ; and even ni spite of an act of Parliament, which 
was obtained in the case, this great pubhc nuisance must be 
continued. 

8. Chartered Rights. — When the vast amounts of property, 
which are here locked up, by the disposal of generations long 
since departed, for the most frivolous, useless, and obsolete pur- 
poses, and under the most absurd tenures, are considered, and 
that even public and acknowledged nuisances cannot be abated, 
while maintained under the plea of chartered rights, it is quite 
well worth considering whether this doctrine does not admit of 
some qualifications, which would render its operation less bur- 
densome and offensive. Many cases, which are constantly 
occurring, would do much towards reconciling one to an occa- 
sional and general revolution, under which, freed from the rusty 
fetters of ancient prejudices, superstitions, follies, and crimes, 
society might take a new start, and avail itself of the improved 
experience and enlightenment of modern times. The right of a 
man to dispose of property, after his death, other than that which 
is the direct fruit of his own skill and industry, is, in my mind, 
quite questionable on moral and economical, however well estab- 
lished it may be upon legal grounds ; and I hope I shall not give 
offence by an opinion, however erroneous, yet very honestly held, 
that no man, under any circumstances, has a right to appropriate 
property to any object which the state may not annul when that 
object becomes either pernicious or useless ; above all, that no 
man, under any circumstances, has any right in the soil, which 
is not entirely at the disposal of the state, always premising that 
the state make adequate compensation for individual cases of 
hardship or injury, and for any substantial improvement, which 
may have been effected in the property by the labor or skill, or 
at the personal expense, of the occupier. Let us suppose, for 
example, that Smithfield had been, by some ancient charter, 
appropriated exclusively for public executions, — as it was indeed 
the melancholy site of the martyrdom of Rogers, and other 
heroic victims to bigotry, — and that the government determined 
that executions should cease to be public, or should take place- in 
the prison-yard ; or, what is infinitely to be desired, that, under 
the mild influences of Christianity, the punishment of death 
should be abolished ; must this field therefore forever remain 



322 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

useless and unoccupied? The English, as I have before had 
occasion to remark, — and I do it certainly as far as possible 
removed from any spirit of censoriousness or ill-humor, — are 
excessively conservative. Their judges still swelter under their 
full-bottomed wigs ; and their courtiers and civilians, in the midst 
of crowds of gentle ladies, wear swords on state occasions, when 
there is reason to think that some of them, if called upon to 
draw and defend themselves, would scarcely know which end to 
seize upon. I am not for indiscriminate changes ; but I go for 
universal improvement, wherever the improvement to be made is 
obvious, decided, practicable, and remunerative. If otherwise, 
what is the value of experience and of education ? and how idle 
It is to talk of the progress of society ! Even in this matter of 
chartered rights, the government, with an inconsistency not un- 
common, does not hesitate to take private property for public 
uses, and to invade the property even of charitable trusts for the 
passage of railroads, which, whatever may be said of their public 
uses, can scarcely be considered in any other light than as 
private corporations. I should be glad to know what business 
has a dead man with the affairs of the living ; and what has a 
man to do with the earth after he has left it? He has had his 
day, and is of no further use in it, excepting in the good example 
which he may have left behind him. Indeed, as Goldsmith 
remarks, he takes care to rob it of what little he might return 
for its benefit, by ordering himself to be buried six feet below 
the surface. The earth belongs exclusively to those who 
occupy it. It seems to me to behoove us much more to take 
care for the good of those who are to come after us, and may be 
essentially affected by what we do, than for the wills of those 
who have gone before us — whom what we do, or are, cannot 
affect at all ; and who themselves, if they were now living, 
would see, in a change of circumstances, the absurdity, or use 
lessness, or inconvenience, or hardship, of the arrangements 
which they propose, and be among the foremost to condemn 
and alter them. If public faith requires that the wills of those 
who have departed should be observed, it should take care that 
the objects for which those wills provide should be in them- 
selves just, reasonable, and useful, as long as that provision may 
continue ; but the locking up of land i7i pcrpetuum, for private 
or public uses, seems of very questionable right and expediency. 



GRAIN MARKETS. 323 

It is quite obvious that 1 am no lawyer ; and I give my opinions 
with the more freedom, knowing that they will not be quoted as 
authority.* 

Besides Smithfield, markets for the sale of live stock, botn 
lean and fatted, are held in various parts of the country. These 
being held in determined places, and at established and well- 
known times, the farmers and others have always an opportunity 
of disposing of cattle, for which they wish to find purchasers, 
and of obtaining such as they require for keep or fattening. 



LIII. — GRAIN MARKETS. 

Next to the cattle markets, in England, the grain markets 
deserve attention. They perhaps should have a higher place, as 
the value of the grain crop of the country must very much 
exceed that of its live stock. The amount of grain produced in 

* I might get upon forbidden ground if I ventured to speak of chartered opin- 
ions, and of the variety of artificial and stringent contrivances to regulate what 
men shall think in all times to come. I have my own notions on tliese subjects, 
witli which I shall not trouble my readers, further than to say that I hold mental 
slavery as the most ignominious of all kinds of bondage, and thank God, every 
day of my life, that attempts to inthral the mind are, in the end, as idle as to 
attempt to chain the wind, convinced as I am that all hopes of human improve- 
ment, and the moral advancement of society, must depend upon the utterly free, 
unrestricted, and independent inquiries of the human mind after what is good, 
and useful, and true. 

I trust I shall be pardoned these reflections, which otherwise might seem inop- 
portune, when it is considered that, in some respects, Smithfield is classical and 
consecrated ground. I think it was one of the Oxford martyrs, who said to his 
heroic companion at the stake, that " they should kindle such a fire that day in 
England, as he trusted in God would never be extinguished." Such were tlie 
fires kindled in Smithfield, which, as they were reflected from the surrounding 
objects, showed the grim, and hideous, and bloody features of bigotry and intol- 
erance, in all their deformity and hatefulness, and still send up their light to 
Heaven, as the signal of that liberty of judgment, opinion, and conscience, which 
constitutes the glory of the human mind, and which every true man should claim, 
at any and every peril, as his independent and inalienable birthright. 



324 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

England is immense, as is quite evident from the great popula- 
tion which is fed. 

Kinds of Bread. Maize, or Indian Corn, — In Scotland, 
a considerable portion of the bread is made of oatmeal. In 
Ireland, a large portion of the poorer classes live upon potatoes ; 
and many scarcely taste bread from one year's end to another. 
In some parts of the country, meal from pease, and barley meal, 
are mixed with a portion of wheat meal, and used for bread. 
But the vast majority of the people use wheat bread exclusively. 
There is very little or no rye consumed for bread. Indeed, I 
have not known it used in a single instance. The poor are ex- 
tremely tenacious of the kind of bread which they eat ; and I have 
seen, in more instances than a few, where the farmer was under an 
obligation to supply his laborers with wheat at a certain rate, and 
was using wheat of an inferior quality for his own table, and 
sending the best to market, the laborer insisted upon that of the 
best quality, though he might have had an inferior quality at less 
than the stipulated price. I certainly do not deny their right to 
do this ; and I begrudge the poor none of their small round of 
comforts and luxuries. I M'ish they whose toil, under the 
blessing of Heaven, produces the bread, may never want an 
ample supply, and that of the finest kind. As a general rule, 
likewise, I believe it sound economy to use the best of every 
thing. But I refer to this fact, as showing to a degree, in my 
opinion, the hopelessness of introducing our Indian corn as bread 
for the English poor — a scheme which many persons have advo- 
cated on both sides of the water, as reciprocally advantageous to 
both countries. They will not eat it. If the rich should adopt 
it as a luxury, (and, if they understood its proper use, they would 
with reason deem it so, ) their example or estimation of it might 
have its usual effect ; but to commend it to the exclusive use of 
the poorer classes as a cheap kind of bread, acknowledged 
inferior, though it were as sweet as the ancient manna, would be 
met with that pride of resentment, which any thing short of 
absolute starvation would scarcely be able to overcome. With 
Arthur Young, I deem Indian corn, or maize, as among the best 
and most useful crops ever yielded by the earth. Nothing 
within my knowledge is grown at so little comparative expense. 



GRAIN MARKETS OUT OF LONDON. 325 

Nothing furnishes by the acre more nutritious food for man or 
beast. Nothing, as grain or grass, is capable of more varied and 
useful application. No plant cultivated returns more to the land, 
in manure, by way of compensation for what it takes from ii. 
The dampness of the English climate, the deficiency of sunshine, 
and in general the coldness and heaviness of the English soil, 
forbid its production here.* If it were introduced here without 
duty, with a view to fatting swine and cattle, there would be, in 
my belief, a clear gain, on the part of the farmers, of the manure. 
I am not conscious of any interested views to bias my judgment 
in this matter ; for, besides an absence of all commercial interests, 
from which my pursuits in life are entirely foreign, I think there 
is reason to believe that, if its admission into England were free, 
the supplies of this article from the shores of the Mediterranean 
would nearly preclude the competition of the United States. 



LIV. — GRAIN MARKETS OUT OF LONDON. 

Grain markets are established in all the principal towns of the 
country, and are generally held weekly. In almost every town 
where a regular market is held, there is held a corn market, 



* In some few cases, where the locality and the season have been peculiarly 
favorable, the earliest kinds have ripened ; but it cannot be depended on, and 
any attempt to cultivate it on an extensive scale would doubtless prove a failure. 
I am not certain that it may not succeed as a green crop for fodder. If so, it 
would be found that no crop would yield more, or more nutritious feed for stock ; 
or make more milk, beef, or mutton ; or furnish a better feed for horses. It is 
confidently stated, upon authority which I cannot doubt, that it has yielded, in 
New England, at the rate of tliirty-nine tons of green feed to an acre ; and some 
persons have assumed that double this quantity can be grown. A distinguished 
agricultural friend here is now making the experiment of growing it for green 
feed. We must wait for the result. I imported the seed for him ; but the various 
expenses attending it almost forbid a repetition. The unfortunate man, who has 
to run tlie gantlet tlirough salesmen, and freighting agents, and commission 
agents, and wharf agents, and carriers, and above all custom-houses, finds liimself, 
at the end, much in the situation of the man who went down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho ; but without even a kind Samaritan to pity his destitution, or assuage 
[lis wounds, 

28 



326 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

althougli the grain market is always distinct from the general 
market, sometimes in the same place but at a different hour, but, 
in most cases, on the same day but in a different place. All 
grain here goes under the general denomination of corn. In a 
great many towns, large and elegant halls are erected for what is 
called the Corn Exchange, where the farmers, millers, corn- 
factors, and grain-merchants, assemble for this particular object 
exclusively. In Some cases, these buildings have considerable 
pretensions to architectural elegance ; and many of them larger 
pretensions to utility and convenience, as there are connected 
with them extensive rooms and chambers for the storage of 
grain. 

1. Forms of Business. — The general standard of measure is 
a quarter, which consists of eight imperial bushels, though still, 
in some markets, the reckoning is by loads of three bushels. 
The markets are of two kinds, one by sample — the grain to be 
delivered on a future day ; the others are in some parts of the 
country called pitch markets, where the grain is brought into 
the market, and sold and delivered at the same time. In these 
market-houses, the factors, or sellers of grain, have their respec- 
tive stands, with the necessary appurtenances of counting desk 
and writing implements, and with the various samples of grain 
exhibited in boxes or bags before them. In some markets, I 
have found many of the factors and farmers bringing their sam- 
ples of grain, in small bags, in their hands and pockets. In most 
cases, the markets are opened and closed at fixed hours, and this 
is notified by the ringing of a bell, to which there is universal 
submission. Such habits of punctuality, in the transaction of 
business, are of the highest importance ; and should there be 
occasion, I beg leave strongly to commend them to my own 
countrymen. The rules of commercial transactions cannot, in 
my opinion, be too stringent and absolute ; yet certainly nothing 
is more loose and slovenly than the ordinary modes of transacting 
business in my own country ; and the necessary consequence is, 
a great want of punctuality, and that dreadful curse of the com- 
munity, angry and interminable litigation. A fixed time to 
begin and to close the market quickens both buyer and seller ; 
but hoAV often have I seen, especially in the country, men wast- 
ing the whole day, and chaffering, hour after hour, with all the 



GRAIN MAKKETS OUT OF LONDON. 327 

necessary amount of trickery and prevarication, about that which 
might be much better determined in fifteen minutes ! 

2. Advantages and Convenience or such Markets in the 
United States. — The convenience of these markets, scattered 
all over the country, is very great. They would be very useful 
with us, and I think cannot be too soon established, especially 
in our grain-growing districts, such, for example, as Western New 
York. The farmers in this part of the country would certainly 
derive great advantages from regular and quick sales, and from 
the extended competition to which such established markets 
would certainly lead. Once a week, however, in the same 
district, would be too often, as they would be likely to take the 
farmers too much from home ; and at the breaking up of the 
winter, when the state of the roads renders travelling difficult, 
or during the busiest season of summer, it might be advisable to 
suspend them. In any event, the hour of opening and of closing 
them should be fixed and absolute. Mutual agreement might 
determine this ; and the custom, once established, would be as 
imperative as any laws on the subject. If it should be asked 
how these markets might be established, I think the agricultural 
societies in the different counties could easily arrange the matter ; 
and that it would be a very useful object of their attention. I 
would advise, further, that a grain market, and a cattle market, 
should be always a cash market ; and that all giving or taking 
credit in such cases should be considered disgraceful both to 
buyer and seller, and entirely out of the question. If bread 
should not be paid for in cash, what should be ? I am afraid 
my advice may be deemed a work of supererogation, but it is 
well intended; and whoever contributes in any way to limit (I 
am sensible the abolition is hopeless) that system of private 
credit and long accounts, which prevails to so great an extent all 
over the country, does a public benefaction. With honest men 
who mean to pay their debts, nothing, in the end, is ever gained 
by it ; and the frequency with which a man's own integrity is 
undermined by it is not the least of its evils. I am strongly of 
the opinion that it would be better for the community if there 
were no laws for the recovery of debts, excepting cases involving 
fraud either in the act or the representation ; and all such in- 
stances should be punished as other crimes. The value of 



328 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



integrity would then be better appreciated ; economy in the 
modes of living would prevail much more ; and industry and 
frugality would be greatly stimulated. 

3. Modes of Selling. — The sale by sample seems, on many 
accounts, more eligible than by bringing the whole quantity at 
once to the market. The sample, in such cases, is divided 
between buyer and seller, for there should be a guarantee of 
fair dealing on both sides, as, in case of a fall in price, the 
purchaser might substitute a better sample than that which he 
had received, and in this way evade his engagement. In all 
cases, the selling by sample is liable, however, to objections of 
this kind, and more especially as the seller himself is likely to 
separate from a small sample what might injure its appearance ; 
and a small sample is always likely to be cleaner, and appear 
better, than a large quantity. One cannot say of wheat what 
the shopkeepers say of their silks and calicoes, " They appear 
better in the piece than the pattern." While it is very desirable, 
in all commercial transactions, to avoid, as much as possible, 
occasions of misunderstanding, much must, after all, be left to 
personal integrity, and that sense of honor and right which 
commercial men would find it for their interest to guard with as 
much tenacity as they would their lives. But alas ! if com- 
mercial transactions were so exact and explicit as to be incapable 
of misconstruction or evasion, and men were always under the 
influence of a strict principle of integrity and justice, what would 
become of the lawyers, the paid moral police and the strict 
guardians of justice always on one side ? Many of them woidd 
make very good farmers, — a transmutation from which, in some 
cases, the community might suffer no inconvenience. 

Where grain is sold in quantity, or by the load, and delivered 
at the time of sale, these occasions of misunderstanding are 
avoided, and the whole business is concluded at once. The 
farmer leaves his corn and takes home his money ; and any 
anxiety respecting the rise or fall of the market, and the fulfil- 
ment of the engagement, coupled as it may be with the usual 
contingencies of the future, is prevented. But the farmer or 
seller is placed somewhat at the mercy of the buyer, when, as 
the close of the market approaches, he finds himself with a load 
of grain, which he must either sell, or carry back, or store, if it 



GRAIN MARKETS OUT OF LONDON. 329 

be practicable, at considerable trouble and expense. In large 
markets, however, where the sellers are numerous, and compe- 
tition is in proportion, the prices become soon settled by common 
consent ; and the seller may calculate, if he does not, through 
timidity or greediness, overstay his time, upon getting the current 
price, if the quality of his grain justifies it. " The tide, if taken 
at the flood," to borrow the simile of a great authority, "leads 
on to fortune ; " but with those who neglect the opportunity, 
the ebbing tide often leaves the vessel stranded, high and dry 
upon the shore. 

4. Multiplication of Markets in England. — There are 
circumstances of difference, in the condition of things here, and 
in the United States, which it may not be uninteresting to 
remark upon, as a special reason why the grain markets prevail 
all over the country. Here there is an immense population to 
be fed, scattered every where ; and there are many more, in pro- 
portion to the whole number, who are buyers of bread than with 
us. The manufacturing villages are crowded with a population 
who are to be fed by other hands than their own. The villages 
and small towns are full of tradespeople, mechanics, and profes- 
sional men, who are to be supplied with bread. The laboring 
agricultural population, too, are buyers of bread. With us, every 
farmer raises his own bread, and feeds his laborers in his own 
house. With us, there are comparatively few married laborers 
employed at all, and of those, there are scarcely any who have 
not small farms of their own, on which they raise their own 
bread, and commonly much more. Here the laboring popula- 
tion, excepting in the case of some small allotments, grow no 
bread for themselves ; and the expense of fuel is so great, like- 
wise, that they depend upon public bakers, rather than bake 
their own bread. In consequence of this, markets are held at all 
the principal towns, where the millers and bakers supply them- 
selves. Purchases are made, likewise, in these markets, for the 
supply of London, where the facility of carriage allows its 



being sent. 



28* 



330 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



LV.— THE CORN EXCHANGE IN MARK LANE, LONDON. 

The supply of London itself is an immense affair. The or- 
dinary population of this mammoth city is estimated at about 
1,800,000; and during the session of Parliament, in what is 
technically called " the season," when the legislature may be said 
to be in full blast, all the places of public amusement opened, 
and the court in the plenitude of its luxuries, it is supposed that 
the population of London does not fall much short of 2,500,000. 
Nothing impresses a reflecting mind with more force, than the 
consideration how such vast numbers of people, all of whom are 
consumers, are to be fed. Yet they are fed, and the cases of 
want and starvation do not arise from any deficiency in the 
supply of bread, of which there seems always enough and to 
spare. 

" The total importation of corn and grain of all kinds into 
London averages, at the present time, about 28,000,000 bushels 
annually, besides about 50,000 tons of flour and meal — the 
weight being at least 530,000 tons." The Corn Exchange, in 
Mark Lane, is the great place of trade in corn and flour, and in 
all kinds of grain and pulse. There are two spacious buildings 
adjoining each other for the transaction of business and the 
exhibition of samples, and the market is holden three times a 
week, — on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, — Monday being 
the principal market-day. The business done here is immense in 
home-grown and in foreign grain. 



LVL — CORN DUTIES. 

Grain is not admitted into England from foreign ports, Canada 
excepted, free of duty, excepting when the price reaches its 
maximum. The highest duty, of 20 shillings per quarter, is 
paid when the price is 50 shillings per quarter, and the scale of 
duties is a descending scale, in certain determinate proportions, 



CORN DUTIES. 331 

until the price reaches 80 shillings per quarter, when it is ad- 
mitted free of duty. In consequence of these regulations, large 
amounts of foreign grain are stored in warehouses, waiting for 
admission, when, by the variations of the market, tlie duties are 
at the lowest. The amount of duty payable on the introduction 
of foreign wheat being regulated by the current price of wheat, 
it becomes obviously of the highest consequence to determine 
what is the current price of wheat, since this price has no 
reference to the cost of the wheat, and, as is plain, the price may 
vary in different parts of the kingdom. With a view to deter- 
mine this, returns are received weekly, at one of the government 
offices in London, from the different counties in England and 
Wales, comprising reports of the sales in two hundred and 
ninety-two market-towns, designated by law, upon which the 
price is averaged, and by this the duty is regulated for six weeks 
at a time ; the current price, with the duty payable, being an- 
nounced in the public papers, by authority of the government. 
This variation of the duties is called the " sliding scale," and 
has been the cause of much warm political controversy. 

The whole subject of restrictive duties is now constantly 
before the public mind; and while it will not be denied that 
there are interested partisans on both sides, who have only some 
private and personal ends in view, it can as little be doubted that 
there is a fair proportion, on both sides, of men of intelligence, 
lienor, and integrity, who, in the measures which they advocate, 
are governed wholly by their convictions of what is due to great 
and valuable interests, concerned in the question, and of what 
they deem best for the country. I know how difficult it is to 
acknowledge this ; how easy it is to impute corrupt motives to 
even the purest minds ; and how our own views may be affected 
by circumstances, of whose influence we are not aware, but 
which are certain seriously to bias our judgment. Men who 
think that the corn laws should be abrogated, and those who 
think that they should be maintained, may be equally honest and 
equally patriotic ; but nothing can be more disgraceful and un- 
worthy of an intelligent and honorable mind than that bigotry and 
intolerance, which would stifle inquiry on any subject of public 
interest ; which would prevent the free utterance of an honest 
judgment, and impute sinister intentions or interests for any 
difference of opinion. It is to be regretted that examples of this 



332 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

intolerance, both in respect to politics and religion, are not wanting 
on both sides of the water. One is almost discouraged to per- 
ceive, in many cases, that the only advance made upon the intol- 
erant and ferocious spirit of the dark ages, is the immunity from 
personal violence and suffering. Men are not now, for their 
religious or political convictions, burned at the stake ; but to a 
sensitive mind, a penalty scarcely less bitter is often adminis- 
tered, in the opprobrium which follows the profession of unpop- 
ular opinions. The tiger, though muzzled, still growls, and 
beats the bars of his cage with his tail, showing what he would 
do if he could. It is a singular and instructive fact, that formerly 
it was the great aim of the municipal and the national govern- 
Tient to keep down the price of bread, but that the present 
policy of the government is to keep it up. Two centuries and 
1. half ago, the city itself provided large stores of grain, imported 
Q-om the Continent, and even established and maintained several 
public ovens, in order to prevent a scarcity of Avheat, and to save 
the poor from suffering by a high price, consequent upon a defi- 
cient supply. The several livery companies of London were 
required by law to have several thousand quarters of grain always 
on hand, for the same object. It contrasts strongly with such 
provisions, that, a few years ago, two thousand quarters of wheat, 
that is, sixteen thousand bushels, were thrown into the river, 
because the owners would not pay the duties or keep it longer, 
subject to expenses of storage and port charges. Whether the 
policy of the present day is an improvement upon the wisdom 
and good government of former times, 1 shall leave to the calm 
judgment of my readers ; but such a fact as that detailed above, 
occurring where so many thousands are constantly suffering, and 
many dying by slow degrees, from a deficiency of food, can 
hardly fail to bring a cold chill over a man of common sensibility, 
though he be cased in the triple brass of the most orthodox 
school of political economy, and seems such a resentment and 
defiance of the goodness of Heaven, that one can scarcely trust 
himself to speak of it. 

1. Arguments for Protection. — The protectionists, who 
are opposed to the introduction of foreign grain, maintain that a 
free competition in their own market by supplies from abroad 
would so reduce the price of grain as to render its cultivation not 



CORN DUTIKS. 333 

merely profitless, but ruinous ; and that the result would be to 
throw much land out of cultivation, and consequently deprive 
the laborer of his present resources ; and though the price of 
bread were reduced, yet such would be the scarcity of employ- 
ment, and the reduction of his wages, that he would be without 
the means of paying even a reduced price, 

2. Arguments against Protection. — The opponents of 
restrictions in the introduction of foreign grain maintain, on the 
other hand, that, from the necessities of the case, the land will 
continue to be cultivated ; that the introduction of foreign grahi 
will induce the farmer to cultivate more land, to introduce im- 
provements in cultivation, to bring into a productive condition 
much land which is now waste and profitless, and thus increas- 
ing the amount of his crops by a more skilful cultivation, this 
excess will be very much more than an equivalent for any 
diminution of price. The saving of the expenses of transporta- 
tion, incident to the importation of grain from abroad, must be 
considered, in its very nature, as virtually a considerable protec- 
tion to the English farmer. 

I do not deem it necessary further to discuss this great ques- 
tion. It does not appear probable to me that, even if the ports 
were thrown open, much larger amounts would come in than 
what are now brought ; and one eifect is certain — that of increas- 
ing the price of wheat in the exporting countries. If more 
wheat is cultivated in foreign countries for exportation, then it 
must be obtained from territories more distant than those from 
which it is now brought, and the expense of transportation 
would be proportionately increased. The production of wheat 
would be in no case, as many persons seem to imagine, without 
limit. The United States have vast markets growing up among 
themselves for the consumption of their surplus products ; and in 
a free trade, the wheat from the United States must come into 
severe competition with the continental wheats. Every one 
must see that the financial bearings of the question are quite 
complicated ; and under such a change in the policy of the 
country as the abrogation of all duties or restrictions, many new 
circumstances would spring up to affect the results, little thought 
of by even the shrewdest calculators. How limited is human 
prescience ! and what countless and complex influences are con- 



334 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

tinually intermingling themselves in the affairs of nations, as 
well as of individuals, which defy equally man's sagacity to 
understand, and his power to control ! 

3. Moral Views of the (Question. — Having stated, with 
what impartiality I am able, the principal commercial and 
financial arguments in the case, on both sides, I feel that there 
are views of this subject, of a moral character, to which I may 
without impropriety refer. The question is considered by many 
as a great question of humanity, which I shall endeavor to look 
at in the light of a calm philosophy, if I may make any preten- 
sions — and I am certain they must be of the most humble char- 
acter — to such a lofty gift. I hope my readers, even among the 
parties most deeply interested, will approach it in the same spirit. 
I believe, from my personal knowledge of many of them, that 
there is as ample a share of real benevolence for the poor, among 
the advocates of the corn laws, as among their opponents ; and 
men of this high character will listen with patience and with 
eagerness to any discussions of the subject which may serve to 
correct wrong impressions, if wrong impressions exist, or to make 
the path of duty more plain, if at present it is in any degree mis- 
understood or overshadowed. 

4. Patriotism and Philanthropy. — It may be supposed 
that, as the citizen of a comparatively young and growing 
country, anxious to extend its profitable commercial relations 
in all directions, and spurred on with an eager and breathless 
avarice, — stimulated, by an enterprise ev^ery where left free to be 
exerted, and by natural and social advantages of an extraordinary 
character, to enrich itself by the wide disposal of the products of 
its industry and its virgin soil, — I should be most anxious for the 
admission of these products into England under the most favor- 
able circumstances, and should be the strenuous advocate of 
free trade, certainly on the English side of the water, which is 
about as far as any man's impartiality may be expected to go. 
I plead guilty to a strong attachment to my own country, and a 
most ardent desire for her prosperity ; neither of which senti- 
ments has suffered the slightest abatement by my protracted 
absence, and my familiarity with other countries and other 
institutions. But I am not conscious of any interested views 



CORN DUTIES. 335 

which should unduly bias my judgment in this case ; and I will 
assert, in all the strength of the most heartfelt conviction, that I 
regard patriotism as a very mean virtue compared with philan- 
thropy, and that the mere interests of trade are to be trampled 
under foot with scorn and disdain whenever they conflict with 
the interests of humanity. I know very well that they are 
oftentimes coincident. Some time ago, in the United States, at 
a public celebration, where I am aware that sentiments occa- 
sionally get a little colored by the wine in Avhich they are 
drank, a distinguished public character gave, as a toast, " Oui 
country ! " which would have been very well had he stopped 
there, and I should have had no objection to emptying my glass, 
if that had been necessary to sanction it ; but when he added, 
'•' Our country, right or wrong ! " I regarded the sentiment with 
inexpressible detestation, to which the wine, if I had drank it, 
would only have added intensity. Some apology may be made 
for him as a military man ; for what has a military man to do 
with right or wrong ? His duty is only to obey orders ; and, as 
a facetious divine said in another case, he has neither the trouble 
nor expense of keeping a conscience. 

5. Proper Ends of National Policy. — When, under the 
blessing of Heaven, will mankind cease to estimate the pros- 
perity of. individuals or nations by a mere pecuniary standard ? 
When will they learn that the true glory of a nation is the glory 
of justice and humanity, and that the only legitimate and 
worthy objects of a good government are, — not the mere accu- 
mulation of wealth, the triumphs of military ambition, the exten- 
sion of territory, the multiplication of pageants and of luxuries, 
the intrenching of power already too arbitrary and despotic in 
its exactions, the higher elevation of ranks already too high for 
sympathy with the wants, and sufferings, and privations, of the 
depressed and low, — but the far nobler purposes of giving to all 
the opportunity and the means of exerting an honest industry, 
and an ample share, and a perfect security in the enjoyment, of the 
fruits of that industry ; allowing no individual to be above the 
reach of that law which inflicts its penalties upon the most 
humble and down-trodden, and sufli"eriiig no person to pine in 
obscurity, uncared for and unpitied ; but, in the exercise of an 
t.'xact and impartial justice, seeking to protect the defenceless, to 



336 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

succor the oppressed, to raise the fallen ; by a wise education, 
and a paternal care, to inspire even the lowliest with the enno- 
bling consciousness of his own moral and immortal nature ; and, 
in the spirit of true Christianity, to regard all men as one family, 
and to seek to impart to every man, without stint or abatement, 
his full share of all the advantages and all the goods which God, 
when he made men for each other, and endowed them with 
human sympathies, designed that they should find in the social 
state ? — When, indeed, are these celestial visions of philan- 
thropy to be realized ? when is the bleeding victim to be plucked 
from the jaws of an unrelenting avarice ? when is the imprisoned 
bird to be let free to breathe the clear air of heaven, and pour 
out his songs of ecstasy upon the floating breeze ? when is hu- 
manity — in too many cases oppressed, degraded, plundered — to 
be allowed to stand erect in the conscious dignity of freedom and 
of manhood ? 

6. Bread regarded in a peculiar Light. — In civilized 
states, bread has always been considered in a different light from 
almost any thing else, and has been the subject of special regu- 
lations. For many years, speculators in grain were looked upon 
with peculiar suspicion and odium, and were the subjects of par- 
ticular legal restrictions. They were considered as the creators 
of scarcity, by their hoarding up large stores of corn ; whereas, in 
fact, it was through their providence that these times of suffering 
were anticipated and mitigated, or avoided. They are not disin- 
terested, but are as useful and important as any class of persons, 
employed as agents in any branch of trade. They are most use- 
ful in enabling the grower of grain to dispose of it to the best ad- 
vantage ; and it would be difficult to say how a large community 
could be supplied without them ; as if, for example, London 
itself were left to the precarious supply of individual farmers. 
They perform, indeed, a most essential and important service, and 
are entitled to a fair remuneration. The indispensable impor- 
tance of a character for fair dealing, and the competition to which 
they are exposed, are securities against that compensation being 
excessive. As speculators in grain were regarded with peculiar 
vigilance, so were bakers, and so arc they still, held to a strict 
responsibility, and the weight of their loaves subjected to an 
assize. In Turkey, a baker giving light weight is nailed by the 



CORN DUTIES. 337 

ear to his shop door — a most awkward position, certainly, to be 
placed in, and sufficiently admonitory. 

The corn laws are regarded by some persons with a sentiment 
of similar distrust or dislike. They are considered as a tax 
upon the bread of the poor, or a reduction of the size of their 
loaf, to which they ought not to be subjected. The effect of 
the duty upon corn is obviously to increase the price of bread, 
as the abrogation of the duty would be to lessen its price, or 
otherwise it would be of no importance whatever. In two 
respects, bread differs from other articles which man wants or 
desires. In the first place, its supply is indispensable to human 
subsistence ; in the second place, though to a degree the product 
of human industry, its production is not controllable at human 
pleasure. Of other articles, in regard to which man's only 
province is to work up the raw materials, he may manufacture a 
large or small quantity, at his will. In respect to bread, man 
can only sow the seed, and then wait with humble hope for 
that blessing, "which shall give the increase." These circum- 
stances have undoubtedly had their influence on the exertions 
Vv'hich have been made every where to prevent a monopoly of 
bread, and to keep it, as far as possible, within the reach of the 
most destitute. 

7. Peculiar Condition" of the English laboring Popula- 
tion. — But there are circumstances, connected with the condi- 
tion of English society, which give peculiar severity to these 
laws. A large portion of the laboring population depend wholly 
upon their labor from day to day, for a supply. If wages were 
paid in kind, the price of bread would not so much affect the 
laborer. If wages rose or fell with the price of bread, the case 
would be different from v.iiat it is. But this is not the case ; 
labor is superabundant ; the competition for employment is 
severe ; and constant employment difficult to be procured. 
Land, for the purpose of growing bread for themselves, is a 
matter wholly beyond the reach of the greater part of the labor- 
ing population. They might as well think of getting posses- 
sions in the moon. The soil is locked up in comparatively few 
hands. It is stated confidently that, from the year 1775 to the 
year 1815, the number of landed proprietors in England was 
reduced from 240.000 to 30,000, and that the process of absorp- 
20 



338 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

tion has been continually going on from that to the present time. 
Labor here, then, is wholly dependent upon capital. Emigra- 
tion, from the insular character of the country, is extremely dif- 
ficult, and not as in the United States, where a man has only to 
take his axe upon his shoulder, and find for himself a home. 
Though the price of bread, therefore, should increase, the rate of 
wages would not be affected ; the laborer would get no more : 
and, from the advance in the price of that which is indispen- 
sable to his subsistence, his wages would virtually become of 
less value, though the nominal amount remained the same. Add 
to this, that the increase of the population of Great Britain is 
going on at a rapid rate, the increase for the last year, as 
stated upon the highest authority, being no less than 380,000. 
These considerations, as connected with this subject, cannot fail 
to have their weight upon reflecting and benevolent minds. 
Whether any restraint, therefore, should be put upon the supply 
of food to the people, is a matter which I submit to the opinion 
of those whom it concerns. 

If " property has its rights, it has also its duties," and those 
of a most responsible character. The condition of the laborer 
is sutficiently striking. His labor creates the product, but this 
product passes immediately into other hands ; sometimes into 
the hands of those whose skill, and care, and enterprise, com- 
bined with his labor, did their full share in the creation of this 
product, but often into the hands of persons who produce 
nothing, and live only to consume and to enjoy. He must be 
satisfied if a very small portion of it is returned to him by way 
of compensation for his toil ; but it would seem at first blush a 
hard case, if even a portion of this must be abstracted in its 
progress to him, or otherwise he will not be allowed the oppor- 
tunity of laboring at all. Our horses and oxen are well fed 
and cared for, in proportion to the labor which they are com- 
pelled to perform. What should we say of the man who refused 
tiiem this ? But alas for the poor men ! I have seen hundreds 
and hundreds of the laborers, who, after a most scanty breakfast, 
in the midst of their labors, sometimes severe and always unre- 
mitting, had nothing for their dinner but a bit of dry bread and 
a draught of water, and who would return at night, when the 
toil of the day was over, to a supper as scanty. Even the in- 
ferior butter is not suffered to reach them, but is mixed with tar 



CORN DUTIES. 339 

at the custom-house, that it may be destroyed as human food. 
What an extraordinary fact this is ! In one of the great brew- 
eries in London, where, I think, forty of the magnificent London 
horses are kept, they are worked but six years, and are then sent 
into the country to enjoy rest and comfort the remainder of 
their lives. What an enviable condition is this compared with 
that of many of the human laborers, in a country enriched by 
their toil, and flooded with a wealth unknown before in the 
history of the world. I should do the greatest wrong if I did 
not say, however, that there are many bright examples of a 
justice and humanity towards those by whose toil they live, of 
the noblest character — a conduct which is sure to be followed 
by its appropriate reward ; and that the evils are deplored by 
many more, who have not the sagacity to discern, nor the power 
to apply, a remedy. But the condition which I have described 
is but too common, and must aff"ord a most instructive lesson to 
the laboring portion of the people of the United States. 

8. Excess or Population. — The constant complaint here 
is, that there are too many people. This is an extraordinary 
complaint, while there are several millions of acres of productive 
lands lying waste and uncultivated. But what is " the preven- 
tive check " ? Poverty and hunger are not found effectual. It is 
an extraordinary remedy adopted at Manchester, where, accord- 
ing to the returns, seventy-six out of every hundred of the 
children born die before the usual age of weaning, a large pro- 
portion of whom are dosed out of existence by the excessive use 
of opiates. Such a mode of disposing of a surplus population is 
certainly as little to be commended as Defoe's Skoj-t Method tvith 
the Dissenters^ advising to hang them all ! A valued friend 
of mine, a celibate, and so likely to continue, whose great 
passion is statistical science, very gravely asserts, that if men 
and women would not marry until they were twenty-seven 
years old, there would be no surplus population. The only 
reply to be made to such practical theories, is in the words of 
the old proverb, " When the sky falls, we shall catch larks ; " and 
it would not be surprising to find such a man as gravely recom- 
mending the old method of catching birds, by putting salt upon 
their tails. I was one day, in London, importuned for charity, by 
a healthy-looking woman with a young infant upon her arms ; 



340 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and it is not at all uncommon to find them with two, often, no 
doubt, hired for the occasion. "Why," said I, "do you beg? 
Why do you not work?" "Because," said she, "I can get 
no employment." " But," said I, " if you have no means of sup- 
porting them, why do you have children ? " " Sir," said she, 
with a simplicity which was irresistible, " Providence sends 
them." It would have been much more true had she said, 
improvidence ; but it was evident she was no adept in the 
Malthusian school. Children, then, will be born into the world. 
The improvement of the lower classes by education, the general 
elevation of the standard of living, the increase of what may be 
termed the artificial wants of life, and the influence of the higher 
class of religious and moral considerations, giving a deeper con- 
viction of responsibility, and rendering the domestic aff"ections 
more elevated, and the social interests and the parental relations 
more sacred, as far as they can be brought to bear upon the 
mind, are among the only certain remedies for this improvi- 
dence. These considerations, however, can only be expected to 
have their proper influence where the mind is in some measure 
prepared for them by a rational and virtuous education. But it 
is in no case a sufficient reason for subjecting the poorer classes 
to any new hardship or privation, to say that there are too many 
people ; because there are other questions, which inevitably arise 
in the case, to which a reply might not be very easy ; — namely, 
Who is here who has no right to be here ? and. Whose duty is it 
to retire ? or. Who should be put out ? I do not say that society 
is bound to support gratuitously any man, other than such as by 
the providence of God are made incapable of providing for them- 
selves. Here the obligation is imperative. I hold the obliga- 
tion on society to be equally imperative to afford to every man, 
as far as possible, the opportunity, by his own honest labor, of 
providing for himself and those whom the divine Providence 
has cast upon his care. Now, wherever the appropriation of the 
soil, or the institutions of society, are such as to deprive a man 
of this power, or to prevent him the opportunity of its exertion 
where otherwise he would use it, it would seem, without the 
most cogent reasons, a measure of great severity to live upon his 
labor, and to take even from the small pittance which enables 
him to render that labor ; to see him reduced to the borders of 
starvation, and then to demand a piece of his last crust. I do 



MODE OF ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES. 341 

not speak of motives in this case at all, but only of what seems 
to some minds to be the tendency or character of certain meas- 
ures. I do not believe there is any prevalent want of compassion 
among the strongest advocates of restriction, or any disposition 
to drive the laborers to the wall. Indeed, I shall utter only my 
honest conviction, founded upon the closest personal observation, 
that the laborers of England have no warmer friend than in the 
public-spirited nobleman * who has taken the lead in the pro- 
'tection societies; and this likewise applies, as I well know, to 
many associated with him. No man in England is surrounded 
with more contented and attached laborers. But we cannot all 
see the same subject in the same light ; and while nothing is 
easier or more congenial to a mean temper, nothing is more 
foreign from a generous and honorable mind, than the imputa- 
tion of mean or unworthy motives to those whose opinions or 
measures differ from our own. 

I have spoken thus at large, and given, as well as I am able, 
the opinions prevalent with different persons on the great subject 
of the corn laws — first, because it is intimately connected with 
the agricultural condition of England ; and next, because I 
know the strong interest which is taken in the subject in the 
United States. It certainly is not for us to complain of the 
restrictive laws of England. I give no opinion as to the policy 
or impolicy of such restrictions on either side ; but, while we 
barricade our own doors, we cannot, with a very good grace, 
require of others to leave theirs open. 



LVII. — MODE OF ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES. 

Every circumstance, which tends to widen the distinction or 
separation between the rich and the poor, the employer and the 
employed, and to create opposing interests between them, is 
alike unfriendly to both parties. The rich and the poor, the 
employer and the employed, are equally essential to each other. 

* The Duke of Richmond, president of the Agricultural Protection Society. 
29* 



342 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

Formerly, the laborer lived in the family of the employer, and 
sat at the same table. This custom is now almost entirely done 
away with ; and laborers, instead of being members of the same 
family, live wholly by themselves. It used to be much more 
the custom than now to pay the laborers in kind ; and then the 
laborer had a special interest in the crop, and high prices were 
quite as much for his advantage as for that of his master. This 
practice still prevails to a degree in Scotland, but nowhere, that I 
have found, in England. Under present arrangements, however, 
where wages are paid in money, the two interests, as in all 
other cases of commercial trading, become distinct, and, I may 
add, opposed to each other. What one receives, lessens, of 
course, the gains of the other. The employer gives as little as 
possible ; and where labor is abundant, and competition severe, 
it is obvious he has the laborer very much at his mercy. The 
laborer, on the other hand, will not be likely to return any more 
than the strictest interpretation of his obligation requires. This 
may be the occasion of a matter to which I have before alluded 
— that, in my opinion, an English laborer does not accomplish 
nearly so much in the same time as an American laborer. I 
speak of cases in which the American is working for himself, 
the Englishman for another. In cases where work is taken by 
the piece or job, as in harvest for example, there seems to be no 
want of application or success, on the part of the English 
laborer. 

Philanthropic minds are now every where anxiously at work 
devising means or schemes for the benefit of the laborers, and 
to mitigate the evils of their condition, which otherwise are 
likely to be increased rather than diminished, as the population 
increases. In Austrian Poland, where the peasants are them- 
selves occupiers of land, the landlord or proprietor of the soil 
claims from them a certain number of days' work, each week, 
exclusively for himself ; but no such arrangement would be pos- 
sible in England ; nor would it obviate the difficulty to which I 
have referred. 

i. Experiment in Germany. — A German baron, with whom 
I have the pleasure of a friendly acquaintance, has given me an 
outline of his arrangement with his laborers, which, as far as it 
is practicable, deserves much consideration, as, according to his 



MODE OF ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES. 343 

own account, it secures their industry, fidelity, and contentment. 
No human arrangements are perfect, and no luiman laws caii be 
framed which the ingenuity of men will not contrive to evade ; 
but as there appears in this plan every motive to good faith, good 
faith on both sides would seem to be all that is necessary to its 
successful operation. 

First, from the products of the place, the customary rent is 
paid, and the wages of the labor employed. The surplus 
remaining is then divided into five equal parts. Two of these 
parts are claimed by the proprietor for his skill, intelligence, and 
care, in the superintendence and management of the property ; 
one part is retained as an insurance upon that part of the property 
which is liable to loss or destruction ; one part is devoted to 
actual improvements upon the place ; and one is divided among 
the laborers themselves, according to the rate of wages which 
they receive for their work. Whether these proportions are 
properly adjusted or not, I shall leave to the judgment of my 
readers. It is obvious that any others might be adopted which 
should be deemed more just. It is certainly an approach to an 
equitable arrangement ; and my friend assures me that it works 
well. He says, he leaves his estate at any time with a perfect 
confidence that his interests will be cared for and protected, and 
that there will be no waste of time, and no squandering of 
property, and no neglect of duty. Success is, in proportion, as 
much the interest of the laborers as of the proprietor. 

2. Claims of Labor, and Duties of Wealth. — This has al- 
ways impressed my mind as only an equitable adjustment, and 
must be equally as soothing to a good man's conscience as to a 
poor man's stomach. Contradicted, as I have often, and severely 
reproached, as I have sometimes, been for the assertion, I never- 
theless maintain as my sober conviction, that in all business 
where success depends on labor, — whether it be in the case of 
manufacturing industry, in agricultural labor, or in the toils and 
hardships of a seafaring life, — the person who does the work, 
who endures the hardships, who encounters the exposures, has 
the first claim upon the proceeds, and should come in for an 
equitable share of the profits. I admit that there is much labor 
and anxiety in mental application, and in the active enterprise 
and care on the part of the manager of such concerns, which are 



344 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

often as severe as any bodily toil, and which deserve to be fully 
compensated. In general, this enterprise is perfectly competent, 
however, to take care of its own interests, and seldom fails to 
provide for itself. But it is said, these people take no risks ; 
they are sure, in any event, of their stipulated wages ; they have 
no right to any more. I know they have no legal right. But I 
do not understand that they take no risks. There is always a 
risk of losing their wages, which is something ; but in all em- 
ployments there is a risk of health, and in many a constant 
exposiu-e to disease, to accidents of various kinds, to loss of 
sight, or loss of limbs, or loss of life. There are many trades 
and professions where health is almost certain to be impaired, 
and life to be prematurely cut off. There are peculiar dangers 
in mines, among complicated machinery, in unhealthy climates, 
on the open seas, and on the ice-bound atid rock-bound shores, 
bristled with pointed clilfs and ruffled with foaming waves. 

I know very well the great rules of trade, as they are called — 
" Buy as cheaply as you can ; sell as dearly as you can ; get yoiu* 
labor performed for the least possible wages ; and accumulate, 
accumulate, accumulate, as your great end and aim." This men 
call Christianity ; I think, to give it such a name is a libel upon 
a religion which teaches us to do justly and to love mercy, 
and which enjoins it upon us, as the highest law of social duty, 
to do to others as we would that others should do to us. I 
admit that, if men could enter into a perfectly free and equal 
competition, unmixed self-interest, though an inferior, might yet 
not be so objectionable a rule as in other circumstances ; but 
how seldom is the competition equal between capital and labor, 
wealth and poverty, skill and ignorance ; and especially in a 
country like England, where wealth is enormous ; labor supera- 
.bundant ; the professions, and trades, and occupations crowded 
to repletion ; the lower classes extremely ignorant and dependent ; 
and the population increasing with a rapidity perfectly astound- 
ing. I complain of no man's wealth, if that wealth be the fruit 
of honest industry and enterprise. I envy no man's power, if 
that power be justly acquired. But I do envy — with no desire, 
however, to pluck a single jewel from his crown — that man's 
honor and felicity, and equally his wisdom and goodness, who, 
m the possession of ample power, whether of wealth, or learning, 
or talents, finds his highest honor in being just, and his purest 



iMOUi-: Ob' ADJUSTING LABOR AND WAGES, 345 

happiness ia using this power ni doing good ; in succoring those 
who need succor ; in helping those who are trying to help 
themselves ; in encouraging and stimulating self-respect, and a 
virtuous ambition to make their condition better, even in the 
most humble ; in proving himself the friend of the friendless ; 
in protecting and rewarding industry, sobriety, and frugality, not 
in a niggardly, but a generous manner ; in sharing some liberal 
measure of his abundance with those by whose labor, under the 
blessing of Heaven, this abundance has been created ; and in 
sending light, and comfort, and plenty, into the cottages and 
hearts of those who have sowed his fields, and brought on their 
toil-worn shoulders the fruits of their cultivation to his stores. 
The golden harvests of such a man in every wave reflect 
Heaven's purest sunshine ; his dew-bespangled fields glitter 
with a radiance brighter than ever shone in a regal diadem ; 
and the happiness and joy, which he sends into the homes and 
hearts of others, return in gushing streams to flood his own home 
and his own heart. 

I know my poor words will find a warm response in many a 
kind bosom, and, by Heaven's blessing, may throw a spark into 
that smoking flax, which too much of what is called prosperity 
may not yet have quenched. There are many such hearts ; but 
in general we see " who gets the lion's share." To reason 
with avarice, is well nigh desperate. If it were an iceberg, we 
might hope that, under the rays of a clear sun, it might be made 
to trickle ; but it is a mass of granite, which, like the monu- 
mental column in Trafalgar Square, stands wholly unmoved by 
the forlorn and pitiable objects of destitution and wretchedness, 
whom I have often seen, in a winter's day, sunning themselves 
at its base ; and remains alike impervious to heat or cold, to calm 
or storm, to summer's fires or winter's frosts. 

3. Results of the German Experiment. — The friend, to 
whom I have referred, has three hundred laborers in his employ- 
ment. He says, the system works well ; and that every year's 
experience gives him stronger confidence in its justice and 
advantages. First, his work is done ; secondly, it is done in 
the best manner in which his laborers are able to execute it, 
because it is the interest of all that it should be done, and well 
done. The laborers have a system of rules and fines among 



346 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

themselves, always subject to his approbation, and, after once 
approved, always rigidly enforced. They inquire, of their own 
accord, into the best methods of doing what is to be done ; they 
point out mistakes which have been committed, and improve- 
ments which may be made, subject always to his judgment. If 
men are found unskilful or incompetent in the particular branch 
of duty assigned them, he is advised of it, and persons more 
suitable are selected by their judgment who best understand the 
capacities of their fellow-laborers for the work. They are held 
jointly responsible for any injury to the property, unless the 
offending person is found. An individual guilty of any neglect 
of duty, or any improper conduct, or any violation of the estab- 
lished rules, is mulcted in a pecuniary fine. The names of the 
offenders are always announced at the close of the year ; and 
these fines go towards a general entertainment and festivity. 
The proprietor himself hears all complaints, and a laborer, whose 
bad habits are judged incorrigible, is discharged. 

I have been somewhat amused by his telling me that the 
great evil which he has to contend with is the use of tobacco. 
Smoking upon his premises he absolutely forbids, for three good 
reasons — first, the danger of fire ; secondly, for the time which 
it occupies, and the lazy habits which it induces ; and thirdly, 
because he deems its effects upon the stomach extremely per- 
nicious to health, and incapacitating men in a degree for labor. 
In other words, he \aews it as a poison. So do I. I wish it 
was as quick and fatal in its operation as arsenic, or prussic acid, 
always premising, however, that those who now use it in any 
form should be fully and reasonably forewarned. 

4. Scotch Customs — a Digression. — My readers will, I 
hope, be indulgent to my infirmity, which has been, even in 
this country, sometimes put to a severe test. In Scotland, for 
example, they take snuff with a spoon. A small silver spoon, or 
one made of bone, is filled from the horn, and then thrust up the 
nose. To complete the refinement, there is also a small brush to 
clean the upper lip, and edges of the nostrils. The reader may 
judge of my sensations when the spoon and the horn were both 
actually offered to me in church. There may, however, in this 
case be some claims to indulgence, for in one of the Scotch 
meetings which I attended, the extempore prayer was actually 



THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 347 

one hour, and the sermon which followed, two hours in length ; 
both, I admit, excellent in their way. But then, although the 
argument and the doctrine were sufiiciently stimulating to a 
stranger, yet veterans accustomed to such engagements might 
get to sleep, from pure exhaustion, under the discharges even of 
musketry and cannon, and might require extraordinary appli- 
cations to keep their sensibility alive. I will say, however, in 
justice to the Scotch, that I never witnessed more decorum, and 
more wakeful attention, in time of service, than in the Scotch 
meetings ; and they bore these inflictions or penances, as less 
serious minds would consider them, with a philosophic submis- 
sion, worthy of the pillar saints in the dark ages. 

While speaking of the manners of the rural population, I 
may allude to another practice prevailing in some of the rural 
districts in Scotland, which some persons in the rural districts 
in the United States may feel an interest in knowing. I 
attended worship, in Scotland, in a most quiet and delightful 
district of country, and among green fields cultivated with the 
highest skill, and loaded with the richest crops, where, when 
the first regular service was through, and all done, after an 
interval of about ten minutes, during which the minister never 
left his pulpit, nor the congregation their seats, the minister 
began and went through another whole service, and gave a 
second sermon on a different subject, as long as the former. 
This finished for the day, and, as I was informed, was so 
arranged that the farmers, and farmers' wives and daughters, 
who lived at some distance, might get home in season to milk 
their cows, and tend their cattle. I had likewise a slight 
impression come over my mind, that they meant to have their 
money's worth of instruction, and did not choose to let their 
spiritual laborer off with half a day's work for full wages. It 
required, however, a healthy intellectual digestion to dispose of 
two full meals at once. 



LVIIL — THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 

Besides the cattle and grain markets, there are other markets, 
to which I have already alluded, connected with agriculture, 



348 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

which are sometmies called by the startling designation, the 
dead markets, by which is only intended markets for the sale of 
slaughtered animals, beef, mutton, pork, lamb, veal, &c. &c., 
and which in London are quite worth a visit. The largest of 
these, in this great metropolis, are Newgate and Leadenhall 
Markets ; and it is a curious fact, that the former occupies a 
building (the magnificent entrance of which still remains, with 
its high and ornamented archway, and its aisles, with the old 
columns, form the meat-stalls) which was formerly a literary 
institution, or college. Instead of food for the mind, it now 
furnishes food for the body ; and instead of the purveyors of intel- 
lectual provisions, — poetry, philosophy, eloquence, and science, — 
here stand the purveyors of mutton, pork, and beef — a very ig- 
noble office, and a very humiliating descent, as some refined 
and sensitive persons would deem it : but alas ! what would 
become of science, philosophy, eloquence, or even poetry itself, 
without mutton, pork, and beef? The philosophical Edward 
Search, in his most admirable work, " The Light of Nature," 
says, " that he has found a draught of Daffy's Elixir, on getting up 
in the morning, a powerful means of grace, dispelling doubts 
and despondencies, and strengthening and brightening his faith ; " 
and though, through a foolish pride, we may be disposed to deny 
or not to recognize our relations in humble life, as citizens some- 
times "cut" their country cousins when they meet them in 
town, yet the stomach and understanding are near neighbors, 
and the one absolutely dependent on the other. What nature 
hath joined no man can put asunder. 

The markets in London display their meats to considerable 
advantage ; and besides the great markets, meat shops prevail 
all over the town, and are found in some of the best streets 
intermingled with other kinds of shops of the most splendid 
description. Even Bond Street, the very emporium of fashion, 
elegance, and taste, has its meat shops, where whole carcasses of 
mutton are suspended before the doors in long rows, as, under 
the bloody code of former years, prisoners at the close of the 
sessions used to be suspended at the Old Bailey, — except in this 
case in an inverse order, the heads of the sheep being down- 
wards, as mutton-heads are- apt to get inverted. A fine lady, in 
passing from one milliner's or jeweller's shop to another, must 
take very good care, lest, instead of encountering a fine beau, to 



THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 3'49 

which she might not object, she encounters a fine quarter ot 
beef, or a fine sheep, which certainly, if taste only were con- 
suked, she would prefer to meet in another form and place. 
The incongruity is at first offensive to a stranger, and seems in 
very bad taste ; but an amateur finds some compensation in the 
beauty of the objects thus exhibited. I do not mean the ladies, 
of whom possibly I may speak in another place, but the meats. 
Mutton is always the prevailing meat, for this seems to be the 
favorite dish on English tables. It is a remarkable fact, that 
mutton is the prevalent dish at the public schools and colleges. 
At the Blue Coat School in London, for example, it is the sole 
meat for the eight hundred boys, four or five days out of seven. 
The same is the case, I am told, at Eton ; and this not, as I sup- 
posed, from its comparative cheapness, but from experience, and 
the opinion of medical men, that it is the most Avholesome diet, and 
least likely to interfere with intellectual application and health. 

The Southdown and the Leicester sheep are generally pre- 
ferred, though the small Welsh mutton, for its exquisite flavor, is 
most esteemed ; and the fatness of the beef, and mutton, and lamb, 
is every where most striking. Indeed, in the English markets, 
lean meat is hardly to be seen. If it is sold, it is certainly 
seldom displayed. The meat-shops are eminently clean ; this, 
indeed, is the universal characteristic of the English people above 
the lowest classes, who in London are eminently dirty. The 
salesmen, however, with their blue woollen frocks and aprons, in 
tidyness of appearance would hardly bear a comparison with the 
salesmen and women in the Philadelphia markets, with their white 
linen frocks and aprons. Indeed, in this respect, Philadelphia, 
as far as my observation goes, stands preeminent. Cleanliness, 
it is often said, and with a good deal of reason, is next to godli- 
ness. I confess to this creed. I think it should be inculcated 
as a religious duty, and for its' useful moral influences. The 
sect of Friends regard it as such ; and it is doubtless much owing 
to their influence and example, that Philadelphia is so prover- 
bially neal. Many of the English butchers and salesmen arc 
distinguished for their intelligence, and the great extent of their 
concerns. 

1. Slaughter-Houses in London. — I have already said that 
a great deal of the meat which is exposed for sale in London is 
30 



350 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

killed in the country, and at some seasons of the year brought 
even from remote parts of Scotland. But I shall perhaps surprise 
some of my readers by informing them that London is full of 
slaughtering-houses. The police of London is so exemplary, 
and many of these places are kept with such perfect neatness, 
that even the nearest neighbors are not apprized of their exist- 
ence.* This fact may be recommended to the attention of the 
butchers in the vicinity of Boston, and some other of our large 
towns. Their neighbors certainly will join in this recommenda- 
tion, for most of these slaughtering establishments are an intol- 
erable nuisance. In some of the best streets in London, where 
the meat-shops are found, will be found behind these shops the 
slaughter-houses, where this meat is killed. You will some- 
times see cattle and sheep brought in by the front door of very 
respectable looking houses, (for the yards of the houses are oth- 
erwise inaccessible,) like acquaintances of the family. Back 
of these shops, I have been introduced into elegantly furnished 
drawing-rooms, and did not discover that the slaughtering estab- 
lishment was immediately adjoining, until I looked out of the 
window. There is not the slightest odor perceptible, to offend the 
senses. The animals come out in a very different form from what 
they go in. The blood goes at once into the common sewers, 
and the offal is carefully removed. In the neighborhood of the 

* One great means of the extraordinary cleanliness of London is, that noBwine 
are ever allowed to be kept in it. The lower class of Irish, who migrate to Lon- 
don in vast numbers, (for where, indeed, do not these laborious creatures migrate ?) 
are thus obliged to abandon the tender familiarities of their early years, v/hich 
have " grown with their growth, and strengtliened witli their strength." As the 
ruling passion, however, is always strong, and the Irish heart, even in tlie hum- 
blest condition, is distinguished by warm affections, they contrive, as some of the 
gentlemen of the health commission have informed me, many times in a very 
adroit manner to evade the law, and the pig and the donkey are often regularly 
installed lodgers in their rooms, and free sharers at their humble board. It is 
said that when tlie terror of the Asiatic cholera prevailed, and a health com- 
mittee visited the premises of the poorer classes in Edinburgh, with a view to 
remove the incitements of disease, they found in one of the upper chambers of one 
of the very high-storied houses of that city, inhabited by an Irish family, a large 
hog among the children. Upon inquiry how he could have been got up there, 
the owner replied witli genuine Hibernian simplicity, " Plaze yer honor, he was 
never got up here at all at all ; but he was barn here." I do not know why an 
Irishman should not be attached to his pig, as well as a nobleman to his dog. In 
substantial usefulness, the pig would not suffer by the comparison. I cannot say 
as much of his moral developments. 



THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 351 

great markets, however, the slaughter-houses are in cellars under 
ground, and arc not managed with equal neatness. It requires 
some courage to enter these places. In the extensive market at 
White Chapel, the slaughtering establishments are above ground 
in the rear of the stalls, and the gutters of the streets literally 
flow with blood. 

2. Customs of the Jews. — The market at White Chapel is 
in the immediate neighborhood of the quarter of the city where 
most of the Jews reside. The Jews will never eat or buy any 
meat, which is not killed by some one of their community 
deputed or appointed for that express purpose. He comes at 
the time fixed and kills the animal ; and after the meat is dressed, 
if he finds upon it the slightest blemish or indication of disease, 
the meat is condemned, and no Jew will buy it, though the 
Christians betray no scruples of this sort.* If the meat is found 
perfectly sound and healthy, a clasp or token is put upon the 
leg, and the Jews are at liberty to purchase it. 

Any person who has the curiosity to go into the Jews' quarter, 
and see how they live, behold the filth of their streets, the 
wretchedness of their habitations, remark a squalidness which 
no description can exaggerate, and inhale the odors of which 
the place is redolent, which seem to be the very compound of 

* The subjoined note is of a nature scarcely to be read by any person of a 
very sensitive and delicate mind. I advise such persons, therefore, by all means 
to pass it over. I give it in self-defence, and to show that I do not intend to 
make statements without authority. 

In my Third Report, page 261, 1 said that " numbers of cattle are almost every 
week, as I have reason to believe, brought to Smithfield in such a state of disease 
as to be fit for no other purpose — and for this they are actually bought — but to 
make sausages for the poor Londoners." This statement a kind and intelligent 
friend complained of as unwarrantable, and not well founded. The form of ex- 
pression might, I admit, have been better chosen ; but the reason I had to believe 
the fact, was the direct assertion of some respectable salesmen in Smitlifield 
Market, who spoke of the practice as undoubted. This was particularly appli- 
cable to tlie time when an epidemic prevailed among the cattle. 1 do not believe 
any city officer would permit or connive at it, if known ; but cases of a strongly 
suspicious character are yet established with so much difficulty by what would be 
deemed legal evidence, that parties notoriously criminal often escape with im- 
punity. 

But the following statement, given under oath to Dr. Playfair and Sir Henry 
de la Beclie, of the Health of Towns Commission, during their inquiry into the 



352 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

coiTuplion and pestilence, and of all that is odious and disgust- 
ing, will feel no little surprise at their particularity and fastidious- 
ness in regard to their meats. But these are among the incon- 
sistencies and anomalies of human nature, which are to be found 
among persons in almost every condition. The same inconsist- 
ency is seen, for example, among the lower class of Irishwomen 
in their own country, however humble in condition, with whom 
it seems to be the ruling, and an indomitable passion, to have a 
clean and handsome cap, though in most other respects one 
would be half inclined to think they were laboring under a 
species of hydrophobia. You will see them, the head surmounted 
with an elegant frilled cap, emulating the whiteness of the 
drifted snow, while the lower parts of the person, in a state of 
nudity, (for the drapery of the statue of an Irishwoman seldom 
extends below the knee,) though, as pieces of sculpture, exhibiting 
originally the highest artistical skill, are yet so rough, and torn, 
and begrimed and stuccoed with mud and dirt, that you can 
hardly believe that both ends belong to the same person, and 
that the head has not by some awkward mistake got upon the 
wrong shoulders. 

3. Mode of slaughtering Animals. — I have felt it a duty 
of humanity to inquire into the mode of slaughtering animals, 

state of Bristol, may serve to clear up some of my friend's doubts on tlie subject. 
Report on Lancashire, p. 30. 

" Have you resided some time in this house .- " " Yes, for several j-ears." 

" What occupation does your neighbor pursue?" "He kills pigs, which he 
gets over from Ireland. Often the pigs, in coming over in tlie packet, die, and I 
have seen as many as tJiirty dead pigs at a time brought into the yard. They are 
thrown into the shed there until there is time to cut them up ; and by that time I 
have seen the maggots fairly dropping out of them. Then they are cut up, and, 
I believe, are made into salt bacon, or sold for sausages." « » * * 

" Have you not complained of tliis nuisance ? " " Yes, we have ; but we were 
told it was of no use complaining, for doctors agreed that these smells were very 
healthy. Besides, the owner of the yard is a very good neighbor, and tries to 
keep things as clean as he can ; but his occupation beats him in that." 

What can go beyond this ? Bat why, it may be asked, refer to such cases ? 
Because, in order to correct an abuse, and to guard against it, tliat abuse should 
be exposed. Nor is it without a melancholy instruction, to see to Avhat extremes 
avarice will hurry its votaries ; nor without a moral use, to hold up the perpetra- 
tors of such wickedness towards the poor and ignorant to the execration which 
they deserve. 



THE DEAD-MEAT MARKETS. 353 

with a view to discover if there be any way of lessening the 
suffering necessarily inflicted. When it is considered that from 
thirty to forty thousand animals, poultry and game not included, 
are put to death weekly, for the supply of the city of London 
alone, it becomes a grave question of humanity whether any, 
and if any, what amount, of the physical suffering necessarily 
incident to such operations, can be saved. 

" The poor beetle, that we tread upon, 
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
As when a giant dies." 

The moral influences of the employment, in this case, are cer- 
tainly deserving of consideration. The notions of former times 
were such, that a butcher was not allowed to sit as juror in a 
trial of life and death. I cannot sympathize in these prejudices ; 
but any practice, which tends in any degree to render us indif^ 
ferent to the infliction of pain, even in the case of a dumb 
animal, — any practice bordering upon cruelty, — cannot be with- 
out its pernicious effects upon the temper and character of persons 
accustomed to it. It may seem to some persons a ridiculous 
squeamishness, but I confess that I never see cooked animals 
brought upon table as near as possible in the form of life, 
whether it be game or any thing else, without a painful disgust, 
which I find it impossible to overcome. It is a mysterious law 
of nature that animals should feed upon each other ; and cer- 
tainly, as we cannot doubt, like all the laws of nature, a benefi- 
cent law ; but it is the ferocity of a tiger, and not becoming a 
man, which delights to regale itself with the warm blood of his 
victim ; and though I am no Bramin, I wish always that the 
food which I eat should be as far as possible separated from aF. 
associations of life. 

Sheep are slaughtered by thrusting a straight knife through 
the neck, between its bone and the windpipe, " severing the 
carotid artery and jugular vein on both sides," by which they 
bleed freely, and life soon becomes extinct. They are kept 
fasting twenty-four hours before death, as it is said that, if killed 
upon a fall stomach, the meat is not so agreeable to the taste, 
and sooner passes into a putrid state. Sheep are placed here 
upon a cradle or stool, to be killed, as with us. I am not very 
well able to describe the mode of cutting up and dressing, fur- 
ther than to say, that it exhibits a remarkable neatness ; that the 
30* 



354 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

meat, as far as I can observe, is never blown ; and that the car- 
cass is not, as with us, sht down by the back-bone, and so 
divided into four quarters ; but a piece nearly square is cut from 
the loins, termed here a saddle of mutton, which is esteemed a 
more choice part for roasting than the leg, and is always a 
favorite dish upon an elegant table. The butchers, or cooks, 
have likewise a habit, not certainly general with us, but much 
to be commended — that of separating the joints before the meat is 
cooked, which greatly alleviates the difficulty of carving. 

The mode of slaughtering cattle differs from that of slaughter- 
ing sheep. Some gentlemen, a few years ago, interested them- 
selves much on this subject, on the sole ground of humanity, and 
experiments were made of killing the animal, by driving a sharp 
instrument directly into the spinal cord, back of the horns ; but, 
although the animal fell instantly, yet the convulsions continued 
much longer than when he was killed by being stunned, by the 
former method, and it was reasonably inferred that the suffer- 
ing, therefore, was much greater. This is said to be the mode 
adopted in the great slaughtering establishments in the neighbor- 
hood of Paris, " where a sharp-pointed chisel is driven, with a 
smart stroke, between the second and third vertebras of the spine ; 
insensibility immediately ensues, and the blood is let out by 
opening the blood-vessels of the neck." Besides the objection 
made above to this mode of slaughtering, it is said the animal 
does not bleed so freely and entirely as when stunned on the 
forehead, as by the former method. The present mode of killing 
is by bringing, by means of a ring on the floor and a rope passed 
roimd the foot of the horns, the ox's head to the ground ; and 
he is then struck on the forehead, not, as with us, by an axe with 
a flat head, but with a similar instrument, with a pointed end, 
two or three inches long, of the size of the small finger, this 
point being hollow, and with sharp edges, — and this is driven 
directly into the upper forehead. The animal falls at once : this 
point is immediately extracted, and a wooden pin, of about the same 
diameter, is driven into the wound, and forced into the brain or 
spinal marrow, and the animal dies at once. I am not certain, 
that tliis is an improvement upon the mode of killing which pre- 
vails with us ; though the killing of an ox, with us, requires great 
adroitness and great strength ; otherwise, the blows require to be 
repeated, and much suffering is inflicted, which, it would seem, 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 355 

might be avoided. The English method might be tried ; and if 
it has any advantages to the sufferer or the executioner, I cannot 
doubt it would be adopted. 

Calves, as I have observed, are not killed under six or eight 
weeks old, and they are bled daily for a week before they are 
slaughtered. I do not know that this is a very painful operation, 
but very little seems to be gained by it. They are killed, as with 
us, by cutting the throats across. The manner, however, in 
which they are often conveyed through the streets, piled into a 
cart, lengthwise, by dozens, with their heads hanging down as 
they are jolted over the pavements, is perfectly shocking to 
humanity, and deserves the interference of the benevolent 
society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. It is sufficiently 
humiliating to feel, that in nothing does man more need watch- 
ing and restraint, than in his treatment of the helpless and 
defenceless. 

It is a subject certainly worthy of concern. It is no affecta- 
tion of sensibility, though by some it may be deemed a morbid 
sensibility, to say, that the subject is a painful one. The pas- 
sion which one sometimes sees excited in the killing of animals, 
and the utter callousness and indifference with which some 
persons go about it, to whom the work is familiar, are very far 
from being agreeable features, either in temper or conduct. The 
sight and smell of blood excite an instinctive horror even among 
the inferior animals ; and any man, who contributes, in anyway, 
to alleviate pain and suffering, even among the lowest of sensi- 
tive existences, and to prevent cruelty, more especially to the 
dumb and defenceless, need not feel that he has lived wholly in 
vain. 



LIX. — VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 

England may with reason boast of the fineness of her fruits, 
especially as, in this matter, she has to contend with the adverse 
influences of temperature and climate. The country abounds in 
greenhouses, hothouses, conservatories, and forcing-beds. All 
the appliances of art, and the highest measure of horticultural 
skill, are exerted to counteract the unfavorable circumstances 



356 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

under which theh cultivation is carried on; to protect plants 
whose frail nature requires protection ; and by every possible 
means to stimulate and bring to perfection those plants and 
fruits which seem to demand the same assiduous and parental 
care as the young of the animal creation.* 

Few of the country houses belonging to persons whose means 
allow of such indulgences, are without forcing-beds, green- 
houses, and conservatories. Many persons, whose means are 
restricted, with a high refinement of taste, sacrificing the com- 
mon pleasures of a frivolous and inferior character, prefer this 
far higher class of enjoyments and luxuries. In these green- 
houses and conservatories, the gayest flowers, the most precious 
exotic plants, and the richest fruits, are cultivated. Many of 
these conservatories, filled with the choicest varieties of flowering 

* I wish we knew more of veg-etable life. Indeed, what branch of science is 
there, of which we have not reason to wish we knew more .' The microscope, 
under those modern improvements which have increased its power, and conse- 
quently extended the field of its triumphs in a most astonishing degree, is con- 
stantly bringing- new wonders to light ; disclosing the curious and complex 
structure of the vegetable world ; and enabling us to watch in some plants, in 
their wonderful frame-work, the rapid circulation of the streams of life. Such 
discoveries almost make us feel that the man who would wantonly pluck a lily 
from its stem, and scatter its leaves to the winds, or would trample a damask rose 
upon the ground, offers an offence to conscious life, and casts an indignity upon 
some of the mo-^t beautiful expressions of the divine skill and beneficence. 

I have recently had the pleasure of looking through as powerful an instrument, 
of this kind, as human art has perhaps as yet been able to produce. Leaves, 
woods of different kinds, and different insects, were presented upon tlie field of 
vision, and exhibited a structure so various, complicated, and exquisitely finished, 
that one seemed endued with a new sense, and almost born into a new world. 

I often hear it said that divine revelation is complete and full, and that wc 
must look for nothing more. It may be so with a written Avord ; though I know 
of no right which any human mind has to limit the dispensations of Infinite 
Wisdom ; and with tlie most reverential gratitude for what has been given, I 
confess tliere are many more things, tlian have been revealed, which my impa- 
tient curiosity is tliirstmg to know. But the revelations of Uie natural world 
seem only just now begun. The telescope and the microscope are unfolding 
many a book hitherto closed and sealed, and pouring a flood of light upon fields 
of wonders which have not before been brought Avitliin the reach of human 
vision, and disclosing objects, fonns, structures, contrivances, modes of being, of 
activity, of life, and of enjoyment, which force upon the mind a sense of the 
Creator's skill, goodness, and power, absolutely oppressive, and awaken a feeling 
of reverence and adoration wholly incapable of utterance. We may presently 
come to understand the organization, for respiration and digestion, of the vegetable 
33 we do of the animal world ; and one is scarcely less mysterious than the other. 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 357 

shrubs and plants, are at the side of, and immediately accessible 
to, the drawing-rooms of the houses, furnishing, besides the most 
beautiful objects of sight, an attractive recreation and delight to 
the female members of the household, and a refreshing retreat 
from the dissipations of society, or the harassing cares of do- 
mestic life.* 

The hothouse or greenhouse productions of England (such 
as pine-apples and grapes, the natives of climates of a higher 
temperature) are not surpassed by any which I have ever tasted. 
The pines, or pine-a^pples, appear to me in size quite equal, and in 

* In one of the most beautiful paiis of England, endeared to me by the hospi- 
talities of friends whose kindness I cannot too highly appreciate, I found even a 
right reverend bishop, a man eminent for his intellectual powers and his lit- 
erary attainments, entering, with all the enthusiasm of Bacon, into the cultivation 
of his garden, as " one of Uie purest of human delights." He was then considered 
as among tlie warmest patrons of a religious party, wliose eminent piety no one 
questions, who have, at least for a while, converted the Established Churcli into 
the church militant, bi'oken up tlie dead calm in which it had for years reposed, 
and lashed its waves into a tempestuous foam. When I visited him, he was 
anxious to show the friend who accompanied me, and myself, his rosary, as he 
termed it, where, in a separate and extensive enclosure, he was cultivating a 
great variety of roses, with something of tlie enthusiasm which is said to have 
characterized the cultivation of tulips some years gone by. I could not resist the 
inclination to tell him, witliout any intentional discourtesy, that he had been for 
some time suspected of certain heresies, but I hardly supposed matters had gone 
so far with him that he would openly show his friends his rosaiy. He was then 
in the midst of a religious war, if it be not an abuse of language to call any sort 
of war, or any angry contest whatever, " religious," and in tlie very heat of tlie fight 
I could not avoid thinking, at the same time, what a refreshment to the soul, 
as well as to the body, must it be thus to retire from the field of theological 
controversy, bristling with points of angry dispute, like the bayonets of an 
opposing column on a field of battle, to the charming quiet and delightful occupa- 
tions of rural life. Soothing it must have been, to cease for a while a well-nigh 
hopeless struggle for a perfect unity of opinion, form, and faith, to contemplate 
the infinite and harmonious variety whicli pervades creation, and reflect, at the 
same time, what an abatement of utility and enjoyment it would have been, had 
God comprehended all this infinite diversity in one, and made all animals of one 
form, all vegetables of the same kind, and all flowers of the same color and fra- 
grance. Though I was far from being willing to censure this venerable man for 
anxiously and devoutly turning to the east, when he recited the articles of his 
creed, if he deemed it important so to do, I could not help thinking that he must 
sometimes turn his face to the west, to offer his evening sacrifice, when, standing 
upon the thrcsliold of his door, he saw before him the wide-spread ocean glitter- 
ing with matchless splendor, and the setting sun bathing in a flood of glory, and 
throwing his slanting beams over, a landscape as diversified and as beautiful as, 
within my observation, the pencil of nature has delineated. 



358 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. 

flavor superior, to any which I have seen brought directly from their 
own native region, — for the reason, perhaps, that the latter, as is 
understood, are gathered in a green state, and are left to ripen on 
the passage, usually crowded in bulk in the hold of a vessel. 
The grapes are magnificent in size, and delicious in taste. I 
cannot say that there are no native grapes, and none growing in 
the open air ; but I do not recollect meeting with any. It seems 
to me to be the humidity of the climate of England, rather than 
its low temperature, which prevents the ripening of many fruits 
and plants, which can be grown in an equally high latitude on 
the western continent. It remains to be seen what will be the 
result of that remarkable system of drainage, which is here pros- 
ecuted in different parts of the country with great spirit and 
resolution, and which bids fair, as so"on as any such great opera- 
tion can be expected to be effected, to become general, if not 
universal. Its sanatary effects upon the human, as well as the 
brute animal, are said to be already in some places determined. 

The smaller fruits — such as strawberries, raspberries, gooseber- 
ries, and currants — are cultivated with great success. Of a kind 
of strawberries, called the Alpine Pine, and more properly the 
Elton Pine, the size is most remarkable, ten of them, as I saw in 
the market of Dundee, where they are cultivated in perfection, 
actually Aveighing a pound avoirdupois. I saw others as large at 
the horticultural exhibitions, called by a different name ; but 
those were forced in pots in greenhouses. 

The gooseberries which I have seen on private tables, and in 
the markets, are of a very extraordinary size, the purple varieties 
being preferred. I cannot learn that they are as much subject, 
as in New England, to a species of mildew, or bluish mould, 
which soon becomes black, and ruins the fruit. Here they are 
always cultivated upon a single stem, in the form of a small tree, 
kept trimmed high, and entirely clear of all rubbish or weeds at 
the bottom. The disease, or blight, to which I refer, is not un- 
known here, but it is not common ; and the fruit is grown in the 
highest perfection. This disease may come from an unhealthy 
condition of the soil, or the application of improper manure ; but 
the general and most probable conclusion is, that it is atmos- 
pherical. It has appeared to me, that the climate of England, 
where they have far less sunshine, and much more dampness, than 
in the Northern United States, does not produce mould in the 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 359 

houses upon plate, furniture, and books, so soon as it does with 
us, and provisions, both raw and cooked, appear " to keep sweet " 
longer. I do not undertake to give any scientific reason for this ; 
but it seems probable, that it arises from a more even tempera- 
ture, and the absence of that intense heat which, with us, often 
follows rain and dampness. The black ciUTant is almost as much 
cultivated as the red and white, and quite commonly eaten. 
Raspberries are cultivated ; but I have seen none to be comj)ared 
with the fine kinds common in the United States. Blackberries 
T have not seen cultivated. I have met with them in the south- 
ern parts of England, but ripening so late in the season that they 
have no richness of flavor.* 

Of plums there are several kinds : damsons are common ; the 
Orleans plum, the large egg-plum, resembling what I think is 
called, with us, Bolmar's Washington, are the most esteemed ; 
but they are not abundant, and 1 cannot say that those which I 
have seen are equal to those seen in the best markets of the 
United States, and especially, of all other places, at Albany, in 
New York, where this fruit is found in a degree of perfection 
and abundance which I have seen nowhere else. Cherries are 

* I am quite aware of the old proverb, " tliat there should be no dispute about 
matters of taste," and tliat it is perliaps quite too late iii the season ivitli myself, 
for me to discuss these matters. I remember very well when a half-grown, green, 
hard, sour apple, was as much relished by me as now a delicious Muscat grape ; 
but, alas ! " tlie times change, and we change with them." I will not complain. 
To complain would be ungrateful. There are tastes for all ages, as there are 
fruits and flowers for all seasons. I thanlv God every day of my life for the beau- 
tiful world in which he has placed me ; but I would not wish to be always young, 
any more than I would desire to be always old. I cannot say that I ever sighed 
for a perpetual summer ; for nature every where abounds in compensations. I ex- 
changed the bright, sunshiny days of my own country for the foggy and humid 
climate, and the cloudy and weeping skies, of England, Avliere sometimes I have 
scarcely seen the moon and stars for a month, and where, when the sun shows 
himself, one seems to recognize an acquaintance of former times. But what of 
that ? Habit and use reconcile us to various and ever-changing circumstances. 
I have become amphibious, like a true Englishman, and take a good wetting 
quite naturally. The moderate temperature of the climate has become agi'ee- 
able ; and even the cloudy skies seem better for my eyes than the bright ana 
dazzling snows of New England, in the" clear days of winter. Age itself, if it 
has not the vivacity of youth, and is sometimes oppressed with the consciousness 
of having not even half accomplished our duties and desires, brings with it many 
delicious treasures of memory, which, like good wine, lose nothing of tJieir sweet- 
ness by tiuie ; and hopes, which we would not exchange for all the pleasures of 
the whole of life's brightest summer, are daily approximating their fruition. 



360 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

plenty in the market, and in great perfection ; the Tartarian, the 
bigarreau, and the large black-heart and mazard, predominate. 

Peaches, nectarines, and apricots, are seen occasionally at pri- 
vate tables ; and in great perfection, though in very small quan- 
tities, at the great market, and at some of the splendid fruit shops 
in London. Peaches are grown in favorable situations on open 
walls, but in general under glass, and early in the season are 
forced by an artificial climate. They are brought to great per- 
fection in appearance, and command, when first they appear in 
the market, two guineas, or about ten dollars and a half per 
dozen, as pine-apples cultivated here, at some times of the year, 
bring a guinea or thirty shillings sterling apiece, — that is, from 
five and a quarter to seven and a half dollars each ! 

One, in such cases, ceases to have any solicitude to know 
where the peaches or the pines come from, but is curious to 
learn where the guineas come from. To most of us, hoM'ever, 
unindoctrinated in the financial contrivances and complex labor- 
saving machinery of society, this inquiry seems hopeless, and 
generally ends in the conviction that wealth is very unequally 
distributed in this world, without any possibility of devising any 
practicable scheme for a more even and impartial adjustment. 
Suppose we could at once level all the waves of the sea, and 
produce a dead calm, and a perfectly even surface ; still it would 
seem that, while the drops on the top are glittering and radiating 
in the sunshine, a vast proportion of the drops must be underneath, 
or near the bottom, sustaining those at the top. The only hope in 
such case is that, in the continual fluctuations of the whole mass, 
amid the conflicts of under-currents and upper-currents, the spon- 
taneous eff"ervescence, and the turbulence of winds and storms, the 
lowest may often be brought to the surface, and the uppermost de- 
scend, and this continual change of place and position may give 
to all, in the long run, an equal chance.* This analogy, perhaps, 

* It is by no means tlie case, I am aM'are, that tlie low position is always to be 
commiserated. The place of humble obscurity is, in general at least, the place 
of safety, and is quiet and peaceful, while the surface is swept and disturbed by 
the violence of every storm. There is a measure of selfishness and narrowness 
in the conception of a charming poet, which is not to be approved, when, in the 
tones of pity and complaint, he says, — 

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air ; " 
as if the beauties of nature were made only for man's eyes, and as if the hum- 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 361 

can scarcely be said to apply to a country, where the masses of 
wealth are the accumulations of centuries, and are fortified and 
hedged in by the strong iron fences and the bristling chevaux-de- 
frise of laws of entail and rights of primogeniture. It may 
serve better to illustrate a condition of society like that in the 
United States, where the paths of competition in the various 
departments of life are equally open to all — the condition of the 
laws and the habits of the country favor the more equal distribu- 
tion of wealth, and seem to forbid any extraordinary perma- 
nency to any large accumulations. Which condition is to be 
preferred, my reader must determine for himself 

The luxury in which the higher and wealthier classes in Eng- 
land live is, probably, unequalled in any country, and is, per- 
haps, not surpassed in the history of Roman grandeur or Oriental 
magnificence. They expend, whether willing or unwilling, 
with a profusion which it is difficult for those of us brought up 
in the school of restricted and humble means to understand ; and 
in respect to true liberality, there is probably the same diversity 
of disposition and character to be found as among those, who, 
instead of dispensing guineas, are obliged to keep their reckoning 
in pence and farthings. I do not forget that excessive wealth, as 
well as extreme penury, have each their peculiar moral dangers. 
But the liberal expenditures of the rich, even upon many articles 
of pure luxury, are a great public benefit. Certainly, no immoral 
indulgence is ever to be justified or excused. I do not say that 
it is the best appropriation of the money ; that point I shall not 
now discuss ; but certainly the person, who gives his two guineas 
for his dozen of peaches, encourages industry, rewards horticul- 
tural skill, stimulates improvement, excites a wholesome compe- 
tition, and would, surely, be doing much worse with them if he 
kept them parsimoniously and uselessly hoarded in his coffers. 

The apples, in England, are in general inferior, excepting for 
cooking purposes. The superiority of our Newton pippin is 
every where admitted and proclaimed. Of other of our fine ap- 
ples, — such as the golden russet, the Baldwin, the blue pearmain, 
and many others, — I have seen none, though it is not to be confi- 

blest flower did not perform its proper part in purifying the air, the great element 
of life to all animated existence, and regale many a sentient being by its fra- 
grance, and feed myriads upon its leaves, and yield to many a busy insect the 
precious honev from its expanded bosom. 

31 



362 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

dently inferred, from that circumstance, that none are imported. 
Large quantities of apples are sent from the United States to 
England, and sold to advantage.* 

The English have not yet learned the value of apples as food 
for stock. Many of the farmers in the United States, after 
repeated trials, both for fatting swine, for neat stock, and even 
for milch cows, rate them in value in the proportion of three 
bushels of apples as equal to two of potatoes. There are many 
parts of England, where apples might be cultivated to advantage 
for this very purpose, where the finest kinds might not ripen, 
but where the inferior sorts would be likely to yield abundantly. 
There are many hedgerows where they would grow to advan- 
tage ; and they certainly might be substituted, without loss to 
beauty, and with a clear gain to utility, for many thorn-trees, 
ash-trees, and others, which now stand in the parks and open 
grounds of the country. 

Of pears I have seen several good kinds, but none comparable 
to the Seckle or the Bartlett. This, however, may be mere 
matter of personal taste. Melons are grown only under glass, 
and by artificial heat. The English walnut grows abundantly, 
and is used both dried and for pickling ; and chestnuts are plen- 
tiful. The common shagbark, or hickory nut, I have not met 
with, though it is sometimes imported. Filberts are cultivated 
in the county of Kent for the market, on a gravelly soil, where 
they are raised on small bushes, or trees with one stem, and suf- 
fered to grow not more than five or six feet high. They grow 
together on the same ground with hops, and pear or apple-trees ; 
and the proportionate number of each to an acre, is stated at 
800 hills of hops, 200 filberts, and 40 apple or pear-trees. " The 

* Small adventures sent in this way, as presents from friends to friends, are 
often so badly packed at home, and so adroitly unpacked on the passajje, and 
withal, are taxed with such a variety of charges in the transit, that one is com- 
pelled, from bitter experience, to give up a much greater pleasure than tliat of 
eating tlie fine fruit — the pleasure of enabling one's friends to eat it. The Chris- 
tians, as we arc called, have, at least many of them, very little honesty, and, one 
would be half inclined to think, live upon a system of piracy, or privateering, or 
reprisals, among tlicmselvcs. The Turks have more ; for all travellers assert that 
what is intrusted to their keeping, under a pledge of fidelity, is sure to be held 
sacred. The violator of such a trust, upon conviction, would be likely to find 
himself a head shorter. But then the Christians have a great deal more, and a 
truer, faith ; and after all, common honesty is a very homely virtue, which any 
body can practise if he would. 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MAKKETS. 363 

hops are said to last twelve years, the filberts thirty, and after 
that, the apples and pears require the whole ground." 

The vegetables grown for table use are many of them in 
appearance of the finest kinds. The potatoes grown in England 
are in general of a superior quality, though I think them inferior 
to the potatoes grown in Nova Scotia. In Nova Scotia, they 
have not only the advantage of a climate as cool as that of 
England, but likewise of a virgin soil, which circumstances 
seem particularly favorable both to the growtli and the quality 
of the potato ; and nothing of the kind, which I have ever eaten, 
is equal to a fine Nova Scotia potato. In our old soils, sur- 
charged with manure, the potatoes are always inferior in quality. 
In Ireland, deemed of all other countries the adopted home of 
the potato, I was seldom able to find one that was even eatable. 
This arose, however, not from the quality of the root, but from 
the mode of cooking — the Irish always desiring, to use their own 
expression, -'to have a stone in the middle ; " so that the aim of 
the cook was only to boil, or rather scald, the outside of the 
potato, and leave the inside as hard as when it went into the 
pot. The advantage of this, as gravely stated to me, was that 
they were longer in digestion, and therefore gave more support. 
This may be sound philosophy in Ireland, where the stomachs 
of the poor find an equal difficulty in getting, as they do in 
keeping what they get. It would be inhuman to treat the 
extreme destitution of these poor wretches with any levity ; but 
I found this mode of cooking prevailing also at the tables of the 
rich and noble ; and after seeing such an abuse of one of the 
most useful and nutritious plants which come out of the earth, 
I was half inclined to advise them to try a few granite pebbles 
of a size to pass through a McAdam ring, and see whether they 
would not serve the digestive organs still longer. It was a 
curiosity to me in London, likewise, to see them selling in the 
market, by the quart, the small, not half-grown, not quarter- 
grown potatoes, not even so large as cherries, and many not 
larger than peas ; and these were bought up as luxuries. I 
should quite as soon think of sitting down to a dish of boiled 
bullets, or duck-shot ; and I should suppose with almost equal 
chance of nourishment. If it were such potatoes only, at which 
Cobbett launched his anathemas, one would not be surprised at 
his indignation. 



364 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

It is a very great point to bring the earliest potatoes into the 
market, and I have seen them offered in Covent Garden Market 
as early as March. Indeed, by a method which I will presently 
explain, there would be little difficulty in having them at the 
coming in of the new year. In Penzance, in Cornwall, at the 
very south of England, where there are some parcels of most 
excellent soil, and great skill in its cultivation, where the winter 
is open and the climate very mild, and where, for this purpose, 
land is let at twenty pounds, or one hundred dollars per acre, 
large supplies of early vegetables, potatoes especially, are raised 
for the London markets. In this case, they are sprouted under 
and upon warm horse-dung, or under glass ; and are planted as 
early as February, and carefully attended, pains being taken to 
select the earliest kinds. The mode of sprouting them in this 
case is similar to that adopted by the excellent and spirited cul- 
tivators at West Cambridge, near Boston, where the sets are 
started, under a bed of fresh horse-dung, on the sunny and pro- 
tected side of a hill. 

I will here quote the directions of the celebrated Mr. Knight, 
president of the Horticultural Society, for raising early potatoes : 
which, it is obvious, can be applicable only to our mild and south- 
ern latitudes, where the winters are open. 

" Drills may be formed in a warm and sheltered situation, and 
in the direction of north and south, during any of the winter 
months, two feet apart, and seven or eight inches deep. Stable- 
dung, half decomposed, should be laid in the drills, and com- 
bined with the earth four inches downwards, and covered with 
some of the mould which had been thrown out in forming the 
drills, by the rake, to within four inches of the surface. The 
sets uncut arc then to be placed, with the crown-eye uppermost, 
in the centre of the furrow, four inches from each other, and to 
be covered with only an inch of mould at first, and afterwards 
with an occasional quantity of sifted ashes, until the plants are 
so vigorous and advanced as to require the usual earthing, of 
which, however, very little is necessary." Mr. Knight also used 
leaves as a lining at the side of the drills, in the early periods, to 
preserve as much warmth as possible, and better to guard against 
the effects of frost. The soil in tbis case should be light and 
dry, and not tenacious of water. It is recommended by some 
gardeners, early in the season, to lay the sets upon a floor in a 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 365 

warm room, and occasionally sprinkle them with water, which 
will cause them to germinate. As soon as they have sprouted, 
cover them with some finely-sifted mould ; and the sets will be 
ready for transplanting at the earliest period. 

Another mode of obtaining early potatoes, not neio potatoes, 
which is, I am told, sometimes practised, is to plant potatoes 
only so early in the season, as that they shall be about half- 
grown at the usual time of taking them up. These may be 
taken up in the autumn, and replaced in earth ; and early in 
the succeeding spring they may be sold as new potatoes. I 
should be sorry, by any account of the deceptions and tricks 
practised in this old country, to be in any degree instrumental 
in corrupting the simplicity and true-heartedness of any of my 
own countrymen, who, good souls, may possibly never have 
heard of any such thing as trick or deception ! but excepting 
the lie in this case, the potatoes would be quite as good as the 
half-grown, waxy, new potatoes usually brought to market.* 

Potatoes are sold in the market by weight, fourteen pounds 
constituting a stone weight ; in Ireland, a stone of potatoes 
weighs sixteen pounds. In Ireland, the crop is measured by 
barrels, and an acre of ground is stated to have yielded so many 
barrels. Then the Irish acre differs very much from the English 
statute acre, being, I think, the former compared with the latter, 
as 196 to 121, or nearly 5 to 3, A barrel of potatoes in Ireland 
may contain five, or only three bushels, and the weight of the 
bushel of potatoes is not determined, though customarily esti- 
mated at 56 pounds. Few beans are cultivated for the table, 
excepting the Windsor bean, which is a coarse vegetable ; and a 
small bean, used like our string beans, and called the French 
bean. Our Lima bean, and other rich pole-beans, I have not 
met with. Peas are abundant in market, are brought in early, 
and continued late, and are of several different kinds, the Charl- 
ton pea (so called from the town where the earliest peas are 

* Nor, if they should be tempted to practise any such fraud, will I go so far as 
to recommend them, by way of encouragement or consolation, to read the chapter 
on Lying, in Paley's Moral Philosophy ; nor, above all, that celebrated treatise of 
the same exquisite master in casuistry, that perfect anodyne for weak consciences, 
the Letter on Subscription, in whicii he shows, with admirable skill, in how many 
different ways an honest man may subscribe the thirty-nine articles of the church 
without believing one of them. 
31* 



366 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

grown) being preferred as an early pea. In order to bring peas 
to early maturity, or rather to a state for sale, a ridge of land or 
high furrow is thrown np in a direction from east to west, and 
the peas are planted on the south side of this ridge at tlie bot- 
tom of the furrow. In this way the young plants are protected 
from the cold winds on one side, and enjoy the warm rays of the 
sun reflected on the other. This is a simple and excellent 
arrangement, especially in a climate where we may say, with 
some truth, that a handful of sunshine is worth much more than 
its weight in gold. 

Carrots and turnips are of the finest quality, and always sold 
in bunches. The orange carrot seems preferred for the table ; 
the Belgian white for stock. Onions are generally eaten small. 
They are planted early in the autumn, and gathered in July and 
August. Spinach, endive, cresses, lettuces, are always in the 
maricet, either forced or grown in the open ground. Blood- 
beets I have scarcely seen, either in the markets or on table, 
unless pickled in vinegar. The fine egg-plant, so common in the 
New York and Philadelphia markets, does not appear to be 
known here. That most luscious vegetable, the sweet potato, 
of course cannot be grown. I have once seen some for sale at a 
shop window, and, thinking I would indulge in a reminiscence 
of home, I found, on weighing, at the price asked, a single potato 
would be Is. &d. or 37^ cents. Of course it ended in inquiry ; 
and I was obliged to be satisfied with other forms of remem- 
brance. Of squashes, they can scarcely be said to have any. 
They have a very inferior kind, which they dignify with the 
name of vegetable marrow; but of our fine crook-neck and 
Canada squashes, or our autumnal vegetable marrow, nothing 
is seen, and their excellence cannot be appreciated without being 
tasted. Of our delicious green Indian corn, of course they have 
none. Cucumbers are always in the market. In the early part 
of the season, they are forced ; in the latter part of the season, 
they grow out of doors. Every possible pains is taken to 
protect their plants, as may be seen by the hundreds of hand- 
glass frames and bass mattings which are to be found in every 
extensive vegetable garden. 

There are four species of plants, or edible vegetables, in which, 
it must be admitted, the English markets cannot be surpassed, 
at least in the size of their products. They are asparagus. 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 367 

rhubarb, cauliflowers, and cabbages. The asparagus and 
rhubarb are gigantic, the rhubarb more especially, which is 
often brought to market three and foiu- feet in length, and of the 
size of a woman's arm — some women of course excepted. The 
early asparagus is forced under glass ; the later is forced in the 
open ground by all the appliances of manure. The quantity of 
rhubarb consumed is enormous, for it comes not in baskets, but 
piled up in four-horse wagons in bulk. The asparagus shows 
the want of sun, and appears as if grown in a cellar, the mere 
head of the early kinds being the only part eatable. I think 
Cobbett somewhere says, that " the English do not know how 
to eat asparagus, for they always begin at the white end." I 
have not myself observed among them any remarkable deficiency 
of gastronomical science ; but certainly, in this case, they have 
not far to go to find a white end. Sea-kale or Scotch kale is 
very much eaten early in the season. It is blanched under cover, 
and is a delicious vegetable, that is, for those whose taste agrees 
with mine. The Jerusalem artichoke seems a favorite vege- 
table with most persons.* 

One of the principal vegetables found in the market, and this 
at all seasons, is cauliflower ; and it is certainly grown here in 
perfection. They are sown, for the next year's use, some time in 
August, in hotbeds, and are transplanted into the open ground in 
February. They, of course, before being transplanted, are cul- 
tivated under glass, and for some time after they require protec- 
tion. They are a frequent, and almost an invariable dish at 
well-furnished tables. Cabbages likewise are brought into the 
market with a profusion absolutely astounding, which itself 

* In this case I am in the minority. I have not studied under Mrs. Brings, or 
Dr. Kitchener, or I would inform my readers how tliey are cooked. Under mod- 
ern refinements, meats, and vegetables, and fruits, come to table as much dis- 
guised, as were men and women at tlie late bal-costume of tlie queen, when nothing 
nearer than engages or attaches knew each other, — and that, cither by magnetic 
clairvoyance or previous arrangement ; and it is said, (I do not vouch for its truth,) 
some nobleman addressed his valet as " my lord ; " and some gentlemen, like the 
Smitlifiold drovers in penning their cattle at night, as I have described, had to 
look carefully for some private mark, to be sure that they had got their own wives 
to carry home with tliem. I would not insinuate that tlie English wives, exem- 
plary as tliey are for their fidelity, were not as anxious to be found, as tlicir hus- 
bands were to find them. Sometimes I agree in a remark, often quoted by per- 
sons who are not veiy abstemious in the use of strong language, that " Heaven 
sends us meats, but" T had rather not say who " sends us cooks.^ 



368 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



shows how much they are eaten. One would be disposed to 
consider them as the favorite vegetable of the English. The 
early ones of course are forced in hotbeds and transplanted ; 
and a constant succession is kept up. I have sometimes seen in 
the market, at one time, very early in the morning, many large 
four-horse wagon-loads of cabbages, lettuces, and rhubarb, all 
distinct, and piled up in the most beautiful manner, with a pre- 
cision which is admirable ; and when I have had the curiosity 
to inquire how many heads of cabbage were on a single load, 
the answer has been, two hundred and twenty-five dozen. 

The celery brought into market is, like the rhubarb, gigantic. 
The solid-stalked is greatly preferred. It is finely blanched. It 
is not so agreeable for eating as a smaller-sized plant, but it 
shows the perfection of cultivation. The celery, like the 
rhubarb and the lettuce, is brought into market in the neatest 
manner. Nothing is tumbled into the carts, or thrown out upon 
the ground topsy-turvy, or indiscriminately. Even the heads of 
lettuce are every one of them tied with a string of bass matting ; 
and when presented in the stalls, the various articles are arranged 
with great care — I may add, with taste, and a view to effect. 

In looking down from the high bridge, in Edinburgh, upon the 
vegetable and fruit market below, and observing the arrangement 
of the different articles in the stalls, the intermingling of the 
white cauliflowers with the purple cabbages, the orange carrots, 
the yellow turnips, and the red beets, and other articles of 
various hues, like the colors in a Turkey carpet, the eff'ect is 
really picturesque and beautiful. I have gazed at them repeat- 
edly with much pleasure. The same remarks apply to the 
arrangements in the London markets. I know some will say. 
What is the use of all this ? I have just given the answer. It 
gave me, and it gives others, pleasure. That is reason enough, 
if there were no other. I think in this respect we have a good 
deal to learn. There is a natural concord or harmony among all 
the senses, and the stomach seems better satisfied when that 
which enters it gives pleasure to the eye. Suppose that our 
fine rare-ripe peaches were a dingy black, instead of presenting, 
as they now do, a sample of that most lovely and perfect inter- 
mingling of colors to be found in nature — such as the soft blend- 
ing of red and white in the leaf of the damask rose, or, in a still 
more radiant form, on the cheek of virgin beauty and innocence; 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 369 

I think in such case we should cat them v/ith a far inferior 
rehsh. 

Grapes of the very finest description are produced in England, 
but wholly, as I have already remarked, by artificial culture. 
This, of course, places them beyond the reach of the great mass 
of the people ; but they are always found on the tables of the 
wealthy and noble. In the stalls of Covent Garden Market, they 
present themselves in such a rich and luscious display, as to 
tempt a visitor to break at least one of the commandments ; and, 
if it were not for the plate glass, which protects them, it might 
be, another also. This interposition is certainly humane, as a 
violation of the latter commandment referred to, under the lynx- 
eyed system of espionage necessarily practised here, might place 
one in an awkward position. The violation of the command- 
ment of not coveting what we cannot possess, must be settled in 
another court. I can only hope that human weakness will be 
considered ; for, in passing from one part of London to the other, 
and among the shops crowded with the splendid productions ol" 
nature, refined and embellished by the highest art and skill, with 
all the means of sensual gratification, with every thing to min- 
ister to luxurious indulgence, to feed the animal appetite, and 
the often more hungry intellect, and to delight and gratify the 
fastidious and cultivated taste, it requires a most rigid self-control, 
so far as our desires are concerned, to keep the peace, from day 
to day, with one's own conscience. 

One of the best gardeners in England has given me some 
instructions on the management of grapes, which some of my 
readers may be glad to receive : — 

" With regard to the best way to manage the vine, when 
fruiting, I invariably stop the shoot one eye above the bunch ; 
and it is the practice of the best gardeners in England. I gen- 
erally leave one shoot not stopped without fruit, and to fruit next 
season, and cut the shoots out that have borne fruit this year. 
On the short-spur system, every shoot is stopped an eye above 
the bunch, except the top one, and then it must be managed like 
the rest ; all the lateral shoots must be stopped one eye above 
another, until they cease groAving, as, the more leaves you get, the 
fruit will swell larger." 

I should add more on the cultivation of this delicious fruit, 
but I know it is very well understood in the United States, 



^70 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

where the best grapes grown are not, within my knowledge, 
surpassed for size, abundance, and flavor. So, at least, I thought 
them before I left home ; but in my long exile, in order to keep 
down a dreadful homesickness that sometimes makes sleep 
almost as much a stranger to my pillow as though it was stuffed 
with McAdam's angular stones, I try to think, like the fox in the 
fable, that the American grapes are sour. But I cannot do it. 
Affections, which no time nor distance can quench or abate, 
defy every such idle effort ; and memory returns, with all its 
sensibilities quickened, and all its delicious colorings heightened 
and embellished, to triumph over the impotence of the reso- 
lution. 

There is another article abounding in the markets here, which, 
though by no means unknown in the markets of the United 
States, is not common ; and therefore, from the same intelligent 
gardener, I shall give the best account I could obtain of the mode 
of cultivating them. I mean, mushrooms. There are few exten- 
sive gardens without a mushroom-house, which is a dark room 
fitted up with shelves, and with the means of producing the 
desired temperature. 

" The cultivation of mushrooms in the winter months, in 
order to have a daily supply, requires a house for the purpose. 
The house at Welbeck is divided into four tiers of shelves, 
three shelves in each tier. The shelves are ten inches deep, 
[that is, a sort of boxes, like the berths on board ship. — H. C] 
" The first three shelves are generally filled about the begin- 
ning of September, as the field mushrooms begin to go out then. 
The material used to fill tlie shelves is pure horse-dung drop- 
pings, without any straw. It is suffered to ferment a little before 
being put in, and beaten quite hard with a wooden mallet. As 
soon as the heat decreases to 65° by the thermometer, or ascer- 
tained by a piece of wood thrust in, to see that the burning heat 
is gone off, the bed may be spawned, by opening holes two 
inches deep in the dung, and putting in bits of spawn about the 
size of a walnut, nine inches each way, all over the bed. It is 
then covered with two or three inches of good fresh loam from 
a pasture field. If a little road-scrapings is added to the loam, it 
helps to bind it, which is important, as a great deal of the success 
of the crop depends on the soil and dung being incorporated into 
one solid mass, not liable to crack, or get too dry. The soil 



VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 371 

must be beaten with the mallet, like the dung, quite smooth and 
hard all over. In eight days after spawning, the bed will be 
covered with a whitish substance, which shows that the spawn 
is running all through it, and that the heat is right. 

" Mushrooms generally appear in six weeks after making the 
bed, if the temperature of the house is kept from 55° to 60°. 
They are very impatient of too much water ; and water is 
required to be put on them only with a fine watering-pot rose ; 
and that when the bed gets dry ; and it should be always of the 
same temperature as the house, or it chills all the young ones, 
and the crop never lasts so long. If hot-water pipes are used to 
heat the house, there is no occasion for watering. We generally 
make fresh beds every month, to keep up a succession all 
through the year, excepting the months they come naturally in 
the open fields. 

" Mushrooms may be grown in winter in a dark cellar, where 
there is no artificial heat, by covering the top of the ridges, or 
box, with good dry hay, at least ten inches thick. They will 
not come in so quickly as in a house kept at a steady temper- 
ature, but will keep in bearing a great deal longer, so that one 
good bed will last all through. As a good deal of the success of 
growing mushrooms depends on the goodness of the spawn, it is 
necessary to get it from some respectable niu-serymen, who gen- 
erally sell it in the shape of bricks. Its quality may easily be 
ascertained, if good, by breaking it, and seeing it full of white 
threads, and the smell is exactly like a mushroom. If it smells 
musty, it has lost its vegetative powers. It will keep good for a 
year or two, if kept dry, and out of the power of frost. The 
best is made in London about Battersea, where many cows and 
horses are pastured in the fields. The old droppings are taken 
from the surface where the natural mushrooms grow, and mixed 
with fresh horse-dung, and cut into the shape of bricks. There 
is always good spawn in the old beds, which may be preserved 
to put into new ones." 

I have gone thus fully into this, as it may appear to some, 
unimportant subject, because, as a vegetable, this plant is es- 
teemed a great delicacy ; and next, because of the great quan- 
tities of ketchup which are used, and which may be manufac- 
tured in the country, and of which mushrooms are the principal 
material. 



372 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Pines, or pine-apples, are, as I have remarked, cultivated to a 
large extent, and with the greatest success, in the hot-houses of 
the affluent, where fire heat is employed ; but in Cambridge- 
shire I found them cultivated, with great success, in common 
hotbeds. The beds were formed in the usual way ; and in 
order to keep up the heat, or renew it when it declined, addi- 
tional supplies of fresh stable manure were applied, from time to 
time, to the sides of the bed. The plants were healthy, and 
fruited well ; and so far as the quality of the fruit goes to ap- 
prove the mode of growing, I will say, on my own knowledge, 
better need not be desired. 

I have one remark to make in regard to English vegetables 
and fruits, that will not, I hope, be deemed ill-humored, — which 
is, that, though cultivated with extraordinary skill, with the 
exceptio'ns I have above named, they are tasteless, and without 
that fine relish which one would like to find. I think it is 
Voltaire who says " that the only ripe fruit to be found in Eng- 
land is a baked apple." I cannot accede to a censure so sweep- 
ing ; but it is plain that their fruits and vegetables want ripeness 
and flavor. This may arise partly from a deficiency of heat 
from the sun, and partly from the excessive forcing of their 
vegetables, in the vicinity of large markets, by unlimited quan- 
tities of manure. I know how difficult it must be to make an 
Englishman believe this statement ; for under the national 
peculiarity of a large endowment of self-esteem, which their 
Anglo-Saxon descendants over the water seem to have inherited, 
(and sometimes, I think, with a considerable enlargement of the 
organ, from long cultivation,) a genuine Englishman thinks that 
nothing out of his own country can possibly be so good as what 
is to be found in it. Now, in intellectual fruits, and the products 
of art and science, I will not dispute their preeminence — only 
hoping that, while they are reposing upon their laurels, a young 
and ambitious rival, in a fair and generous competition, may be 
up with them as soon as possible, and distance them, if he can. 
But climates and sunshine are not under human control ; and 
the fact which I have stated is in my mind established, and not 
the result of mere prejudice, of which, on any subject, if I were 
conscious of it, I should be ashamed. 



MARKET GARDENS. 



LX. — MARKET GARDENS. 



373 



My remarks above have chiefly referred to the supply of 
vegetables in London. There are large markets in all the prin- 
cipal towns ; but it is difficult to conceive the amount required 
for the supply of this mammoth city, with its two million hungry 
mouths, not one of whom, scarcely, in any direct form, produces 
a single mouthful for himself. 

The extent of the vegetable gardens in the neighborhood of 
this great city is enormous, and the multiplied facilities of con- 
veyance make even remote places, now, in many articles the 
suppliers of London. Fifty years ago, it was calculated that 
there were two thousand acres cultivated by the spade, and 
eight thousand by the spade and plough conjointly. The extent 
of cultivation must, of course, be at present much greater. It is 
said of one individual that he had eighty acres in asparagus, and 
of another that he had sixty, and that the forming of the beds 
was estimated at £100 per acre. This undoubtedly was utider 
the old system of growing asparagus, when the soil was to be 
taken out to a depth of some feet, and a bed of stones placed at 
the bottom, and other expensive arrangements. Now, asparagus 
is grown almost as easily as carrots or celery, it only requiring 
to be first grown in a nursery or seed bed, and then transplanted 
in the bottom of deep furrows or trenches, made two feet dis- 
tance from each other, well bedded with manure, and the bed 
itself kept constantly clean, and annually covered with a loading 
of manure in the autumn, which must be dug in with a fork in 
the spring. This, in three years from the seed, gives as good 
and abundant a plant as under the old method of trenching and 
bottoming with stones, and laying a foot of manure on the stones. 

The amount of vegetables sent by some individual salesmen 
is enormous. The principal market-days are three times in a 
week, but Saturday is the principal day ; and it is confidently 
stated — though in relating it I fear that some persons may think 
the credulity of their too-confiding countryman has been })rac- 
tised upon — that a single grower has been known to send, in one 
day, more tlian nineteen hundred bushels of peas in the pod, and 
seven or eight loads of cabbages, averaging eighteen hundred 
cabbages each ; and at another season, from the same farm, four- 
32 



374 EUROPEAN AGlllCULTURE. 

teen or fifteen hundred baskets of sprouts will be sent in one 
day, and in the course of the year from five to six thousand tons 
of potatoes. In his account of the agriculture of Middlesex, 
Middleton says, that in 1795, in the height of the fruit season, 
each acre of the gardens cultivated in small fruits gave employ- 
ment to thirty-five persons, among whom were many women, 
who were employed in carrying the fruit to market on their 
heads ; and that the gathering of a crop of peas required forty 
persons for every ten acres. The account given of the sum of 
money received from the produce of a single acre is quite 
worthy of remark, it being the statement of a market-gardener. 
Radishes, £10; cauliflower, £60; cabbages, £30; celery, first 
crop, £50 ; second crop, £40 ; endive, £30, — making a total of 
£220, or 1100 dollars, for the gross produce of an acre in twelve 
months.* 

Besides the market which London presents for the disposal of 
the products of these immense gardens, it is to be remembered 
that labor may be procured at an hour's notice, at any season and 
for any term, and at a low rate of wages. The farmer or gar- 
dener is therefore saved the burden of keeping up an expensive 
establishment for any longer time than their services are needed; 
with this addition, that he makes no provision whatever, at any 
time, for housing or feeding them. Any person, who has had 
the management of a large farm in the United States, knows 
quite well, that the sum of all its difficulties is in the feeding 

* What some persons may deem the intrinsic improbability of such accounts, 
will disappear, when one considers that, in London, every thing, and any thing, may 
be sold, and may find purchasers, excepting only, I believe, children. These are 
to be given away; for it is a sober truth, that in the streets of London I have been 
repeatedly offered the present of children, and that from the breast too, tliough 
none the better for thnt, if I would take them. Whether it is, by a sort of natural 
phrenological skill, they discover my philoprogenitiveness to be large, or from a 
destitution, the bitterness of which extinguishes the maternal affections, or from 
a profligacy even more bitter, and more deeply to be deplored, (in too many cases 
tlie pitiable consequence of this destitution,) this is not the place for me to con- 
sider. But it is for my own countrymen to consider, with the deepest religious 
o-ratitude, the difference between a condition of things in which children are felt 
to be a burden, and almost a curse, and that in which a healthy and perfect child 
may be looked upon always as a choice blessing from Heaven ; and the more 
hungry mouths, and sparkling eyes, gather round the well-filled board of the 
humblest cottager, morning, noon, and night, so much the more, m fact, are the 
means of supply increased, and the parental heart filled to overflowing with joy 
and love 



MARKET GARDENS. 375 

and managemetit of the human machinery. In the next place, 
here there is no want of capital with persons who undertake 
such occupations ; and it is applied with liberality wherever 
there is a chance of using it to projfit. This is a great consid- 
eration, wherever capital may be safely and advantageously 
applied to land. We often hear the counsel given to cultivate 
a little land well, rather than a large extent of land imperfectly. 
In the main, this is sound advice on the score of profit. But in 
agriculture, viewed as a commercial transaction, the profits will 
correspond with the amount of capital invested or employed. 
Large returns are to be expected only from cultivating a large 
extent of land ; or, in other words, pursuing agriculture as a man, 
who would command success, pursues any other branch of trade, 
by devoting his time, talents, and zeal to it, and applying all the 
means within his reach to its advancement. "While 

" Little boats should keep near shore, 
Vessels larjje may venture more." 

The man who, as above, can cultivate one acre of ground 
with such eminent success, may cultivate one hundred with 
similar profit, provided he can give to it the same requisite 
attention, provided a sufficiency of labor and manure are equally 
attainable, and provided, likewise, the market is equally sure and 
favorable for the disposal of his products. Whether capital can 
in any particular case be profitably applied to agriculture, must 
depend upon a great variety of local and temporary circum- 
stances. It is so with commerce, and with most other branches 
of business. No human power or skill can control the vicissi- 
tudes of the climate and the weather; but the contingencies on 
which the success of agriculture depends are perhaps not so 
great as those on which the success of mercantile transactions 
depends. It is idle to expect reward without labor, fruit with- 
out seed, profit without risk, success without eftort, — unless in 
those games of mere chance, of which sober men will beware, 
and in which there are always vastly more losers than winners, 
and many more blanks than prizes. The great want with most 
of our farmers is clearly want of capital, to apply to the land in 
labor, or manure, or in the way of permanent improvements of 
drainage and irrigation, which change at once the whole face of 
a country. The main elements of success in agriculture are the 
same as in any other profession, — skill, judgment, application, 



376 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

industry, and capital, either in the form of education, money, oi 
credit ; the risks are not greater : the road to a reasonable com 
petence, which is all to which a good mind should anxiously 
aspire, is as certain as is common in human affairs ; extraordi 
nary success — which I do not say it is criminal to desire, but 
even lawful to aim at — is not unfrequently attainable: but, what 
is better than all, the gains of agriculture, where the labor by 
which those gains are secured is honorably and justly providec 
for, and its products disposed of without any betrayal of con- 
science, are so unalloyed, so untainted by corruption, so clearly 
in themselves not the occasions of privation, but the very in- 
struments of good to others, that one reposes on them with 
entire and grateful complacency, and their value to the winner is 
more than quadrupled. My friends, I know, will pardon my en- 
thusiasm, which, like a half-smothered fire, is continually bursting 
out in this way. If it sometimes sheds a flickering light by its 
blaze, it never burns to destroy ; and if, in respect to that noble 
pursuit which Heaven first ordained for man, it awakens in any 
pure and honest minds, not crazed with speculation nor hardened 
and corrupted by the too common tricks of trade, any gentle 
vibrations of sympathy, I shall feel that my two mites have 
found their way into the great treasury of public good. 

The eminent success of the market-gardeners near London 
depends on several circumstances in their management, which I 
will point out. In the first place, the land is thoroughly drained, 
so as not only to cut off the springs which might render the 
wetness of the land permanent, but likewise to carry off speedily 
the rain which falls. In the next place, the land is completely 
trenched, to the depth of from two to three feet, with the spade. 
This serves two purposes ; first, to assist in the drainage by giving 
a free passage into the principal conduits of the rain as it comes 
down ; and next, to enable the roots of the plants freely to extend 
themselves in search of food. In trenching, it is necessary to 
keep the top soil at the top, and not to bring the lower stratum to 
the surface, or to suffer a large portion of the cold earth to be 
mingled with the rich mould. This requires some little calcula- 
tion. The soil of the first trench made across the field must be 
completely thrown out ; and so likewise the top soil of the 
second trench. The bottom soil of the second trenching is then 
to be thrown into the vacant space of the first, and the top soil 



MARKET GARDENS. 377 

of the third line upon that. Things will then come rightly into 
their places, the bottom soil being always thrown upon the bot- 
tom, the top soil upon the top, while at the end of the piece 
trenched, that which was first thrown out must be brought and 
replaced. The third point particularly attended to, is ample 
manuring. For this object they have always plentiful stores on 
iiand, to be applied as may be desired ; the old hotbeds, when 
broken up, furnishing large quantities in that decomposed state, 
in which only is its application safe in respect to many kinds of 
plants. Manure is sometimes applied in a solid and sometimes in 
a liquid form. Sometimes, when the ground is dug, the manure is 
dug in with it ; sometimes it is laid on the surface ; sometimes it is 
used with every successive crop, at other times with the first crop 
only : but all these are matters directly dependent upon experi- 
ence and practice, and which it would be impossible, in such a 
report as this, particularly to define. Manure, in its coarsest state, 
is seldom applied to garden vegetables ; and it is found expedient, 
in respect to liquid manures, to apply them in a diluted and mixed 
form. The next point aimed at, is to avoid the immediate repe- 
tition of the same crop on the same ground ; for, though manure 
may be had in abundance, yet the second and third crops gradu- 
ally become deteriorated. Chemistry has not yet determined with 
precision how this evil, if so it is to be regarded, is to be counter- 
acted. It is strongly hoped that this may be one of its first 
achievements. Most of what it has yet given us in the case is 
theory. What we want is practical and efficient rules by which 
the health and strength of the declining patient may be at once 
and with certainty recovered. The next object is, to have a suc- 
cession of crops, one crop often growing between the rows of 
another, and prepared to take its place as soon as it is removed, 
so that there is no respite of the cultivation, while the season 
allows of it ; and near London, with the help of straw covering, 
and mats, and glasses, some plants are on the ground all the year. 
For this object, and to counteract the effect of the seasons, the 
most extensive preparation is made ; articles are prepared of 
brush, of matting and straw, and hand-glasses, or boxes with 
glass tops, and, to guard against insects, boxes with coarse 
gauze tops are prepared in the greatest abundance, and changes 
of the temperature and weather are watched with the most 
sedulous care. Hot and forcing beds, likewise, and conserva- 
32* 



378 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

tories, and hothouses, are made ready in the most extensive 
forms, for the purpose of forwarding plants to be set out at proper 
seasons, and for the growing of those plants which require 
artificial heat. Lastly, irrigation is as much as practicable 
attended to, and engines, and watering-pots, and other contri- 
vances, are in constant requisition for these purposes, and as far 
as they can be applied. The science of gardening is here a 
substantial science ; and young men are as carefully educated in 
its various departments as in any of the learned professions, and 
receive a patronage according to their skill and merit. Under 
such circumstances, the market gardens near London are man- 
aged with a skill and enterprise worthy of all praise, and sure of 
rewards much more substantial. 



LXI. — COVENT GARDEN MARKET. 

The great market in England for vegetables, fruits, and flowers, 
is the market of Covent Garden, without question a corruption 
for Convent, as this place is miderstood to have been formerly the 
garden of the convent, and connected with the establishment of 
Westminster Abbey. The whole square included in the market- 
place is said to embrace five acres ; but this, I think, must take in 
the buildings, dwelling-houses, hotels, shops, &c., forming the 
exterior boundary of the square. In the centre of this square is 
the market-house, of which no verbal description can convey a 
very exact idea to the reader. It combines open stalls and close 
shops, sellers within and on the outsides, with a long hall or 
arcade, running through the centre, sixteen feet in width, and 
fitted up with shops on each side, and with shelves projecting 
into the passage, which are spread out with all the fruits and 
flowers of the season. 

1. Fruits and Vegetables. — The outer stalls are for tlie 
coarser vegetables, potatoes, cabbages, &c., and for tlie common 
foreign fruits. This is by no means tlie only vegetable and fruit 
market in London, but it is the principal one ; and some of the 
other markets, and many of the fruit-shops, scattered over Lon- 



COVENT GARDEN MARKET. 379 

don, receive their supplies from Covent Garden. There is hardly 
any season of the year when every variety of fruit and vege- 
tables, which can be forced, is not to be found in this market ; 
and in the proper seasons a great variety is to be found, the 
product of natural and artificial culture, in the highest perfection. 
The sale of dried foreign fruits is here likewise immense. Eng- 
land can scarcely be considered as a fruit country, and the high 
prices charged for the iiiiest fruits place them beyond the reach 
of all but the most wealthy classes. Two shillings, or half a 
dollar, for a single peach, — and at no season are they much less 
than half that sum, and many other fruits in proportion, — render 
them forbidden fruit to the great multitude. In quantity, Covent 
Garden is limited compared with the city of London, which it is 
intended to supply ; but it is high tide here on a market-day, at 
daylight in the morning, when the wholesale market-men supply 
the retailers, and the streams from this fountain flow into and 
permeate every part of the city and its neighborhood. The 
market in Farringdon Street occupies as much ground as Cov- 
ent Garden, but this embraces butchers' stalls as well as fruits 
and vegetables, 

Covent Garden presents an interesting spectacle on a great 
market-day, at 4 o'clock in the morning, when the wholesale 
business commences, and the retailers, seeking supplies for their 
different stalls, and the occupants of stalls in other markets, and 
the keepers of vegetable shops in the town, and the various 
itinerant dealers, who penetrate all the by-places and streets in 
different parts of the town and the vicinity, come to make their 
purchases. This occupies two or three hours ; and a busier scene 
is hardly to be witnessed. All the smaller articles — gooseberries, 
currants, peas, beans, new potatoes, apples, &c. — are brought in 
baskets ; cabbages, lettuces, rhubarb, celery, &c., in bulk, as 1 
have described. Peas, in Covent Garden Market, are shelled be- 
fore they are sold, and after they come out of the hands of the 
wholesale dealer. These come frequently in sacks. It is an inter- 
estins sight to see the poor and squalid women and young girls, 
who come to earn a few pence by shelHng the peas, sitting about in 
different squads, (and I have counted at one time as many as 
eiglity in one party,) all busily engaged in this occupation at 
about one penny, or two cents, per quart. Raspberries and straw- 
berries are brought in small cone-shaped baskets, containing little 



380 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

more than a pint ; and these are usually brought long distances 
on the heads of women. It is said that these women, who carry 
such heavy loads upon their heads, are principally from Wales, 
and that many of them, for example, come into market twice a 
day from Brentford, where great quantities of strawberries are 
raised, and return ; and this is a distance of more than seven 
miles, making at least thirty miles in a day. To such endurance 
may even a woman's frame be trained. Many of the milk- 
women in London, who carry their milk in large tin cans slung 
from their shoulders, and containing from six to eight gallons 
each, travel long distances in the course of the day. But the 
most remarkable instance of strength and endurance is perhaps 
to be found in the fish-women of Edinburgh, who attend the 
market from New Haven and Musselboro'. Their load, which is 
in two baskets, one over the other, containing different kinds of 
fish, slung upon their backs, often weighs 150. lbs., and has been 
known to weigh 200 lbs. The distance from New Haven to 
Edinburgh is more than two miles, and in this distance they stop 
to rest but once only ; and after their arrival they are to be found 
crying their fish in all parts of the town. How many of the 
Chestnut Street, or Washington Street, or Broadway belles would 
it require to lift even one of these loads from the ground ? Yet 
these market and milk-women, and the fish-women of Edinburgh, 
are perfect models of health and strength. The latter — with their 
elephantine arms and legs, their bright, clean caps, and fair com- 
plexions, their firm tread, and their stentorian lungs, with their 
gay costume of various colors, and their five petticoats, so 
arranged in difl"erent lengths that a portion of each may he dis- 
played — are among the most picturesque, and not unpleasing, 
objects of that beautiful city. 

The advantage of bringing the finer fruits to the market in 
this way is. that they come in the best possible condition. 
The wholesale business being completed, the growers of the 
produce return home, and the marketing goes at once into the 
hands of the shopmen and retail dealers, who are, in general, 
residents in the city. 

2. Flowers. — Having said so much of the vegetables and 
fruits, I must not omit another article in Co vent Garden Market, 
of which the sale is immense, — that is, flowers. In the winter 



COVENT GARDEN MARKET. . 381 

they are sent here from the greenhouses ; at more genial seasons, 
from various gardens and conservatories in the neighborhood. 
They are displayed in the greatest profusion and perfection, and are, 
undoubtedly, a large source of income to the cultivators. The 
English appear to me to Iiave a strong passion for flowers, and 
I commend their taste. A country house, without its plantation 
of flowers and flowering shrubs, would be quite an anomaly ; 
and many of the humble and moss-grown cottages have their 
small gardens of flowers, their doors trellised with wood- 
bines and honeysuckles, and their outer walls covered with a 
thick mantling of ivy, and made gay with the sweetbrier and 
the monthly rose. The door-yards of the English, in the coun- 
try, their windows, their halls, their palaces, are all decorated 
with flowers ; they are among the most beautiful ornaments at 
their festivals ; and even the highest charms of female loveliness 
are studiously augmented by these innocent and splendid adorn- 
ments. 

Looking out of my window a short time since, I saw that the 
laborer wheeling his barrow before the door had his button-hole 
decorated with a beautiful geranium. I went into the street, and the 
driver of the omnibus, whom I first met, wore a handsome nosegay. 
I met a bridal party, and, besides the white favors worn by all the 
servants in attendance, each one had a bunch of flowers at his 
breast. I met the crowd of magnificent equipages hastening to 
a drawing-room to pay their courtly homage to a sovereign queen, 
whose virtues and most exemplary demeanor render her worthy 
of the homage of true affection and respect ; and every lady bears 
in her hand a magnificent bouquet ; and the coachmen and the 
footmen seem to emulate each other in the gayety and beauty of 
the flowers which they all wear. At St. Paul's, at the opening 
of the term of courts, the long procession of grave and learned 
judges, who then go in state to church, appears, each one, with an 
elegant nosegay in his hand. At the opera, upon the breathless 
and successful competitors for public favor, in the midst of a tem- 
pest of applause, descends a perfect shower of floral wreaths and 
'•ich bouquets. 

I sympathize heartily in this taste of the English for flowers, 
which thus pervades all ranks, and, flowers being accessible to all, 
and among the most innocent and the cheapest of all pleasures, 
diffuses a vast amount of enjoyment. They are, indeed, among 



382 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the richest adornments of God's beautiful creation, and every 
where, in the tangled forest, in the most secluded thicket, on 
the ocean prairies, and even upon the desolate heaths, are scat- 
tered about in such an endless variety and profusion as cannot fail 
to impress a reflecting and devout mind with the most grateful 
veneration and delight. 

As for those persons who can see no good and no utility in 
any thing beyond that which fills the belly, or covers the back, 
or puts money into the pocket, they are of the earth, earthy. 
Such grovelling selfishness and animalism I trample under foot 
with ineffable scorn. But the cultivation of flowers does much 
for the benefit of the mind. A taste for objects so pure expels a 
taste for others, which are unworthy. A passion for what is 
beautiful and refined in nature often secnres the mind from the 
intrusion of passions low and hurtful. Every advance, which 
is made in any direction for the improvement of the taste or the 
refinement of manners, is so much done for the general comfort 
of social life and for ffood morals. 



LXII. — GENERAL MARKETS. 

Besides the markets to which I have referred, there is a market 
in London exclusively for the sale of raw hides and leather ; and 
in various parts of the country markets are held, at fixed times 
and places, for the sale of wool, and of butter and cheese. These 
generally go under the name of fairs ; and I do not think they 
can be too soon established in the most populous districts of our 
country. There may be evils, but there are great and overbal- 
ancing advantages, attending them. The large dealers attend in 
numbers to make their purchases, and both sides have equal ben- 
efits from an extended competition. Prices assume an equal and 
a fair rate. The farmer may feel, ordinarily, quite sure of a 
market for his produce at a fixed time, and to receive his money, 
instead, as now, of depending almost upon accident for a pur- 
chaser. Last, but not among the least of the benefits of the 
markets in question, is the wholesome emulation Avhich is 
created by bringing diff'erent articles of produce into comparison 



GENERAL MARKETS. 383 

with each other. The producer of an inferior article is stimulated 
by the success of his neighbor to produce a better ; agricultural 
information becomes generally diiTused: and thus agricultural 
improvement is essentially advanced. Should such markets be 
established, the most stringent rules should be adopted for their 
management ; but, above all things, all trickery and fraud should 
be eschewed and denounced. A man guilty of it should be so 
branded with infamy, that he should never presume to show 
himself there a second time. Men, under such circumstances, 
would be sure to discover that "honesty is the best policy." 

In London, there are markets for the exclusive sale of poultry 
and game, and in Dublin, I found one wholly devoted to the sale 
of eggs. The amounts here collected and disposed of almost 
surpass belief. The statement of a respectable witness and cus- 
tom-house agent, recently, before a parliamentary committee, is 
quite remarkable. He said that there were five vessels annually 
engaged in that trade between Normandy, on the coast of France, 
and London, which brought about 3700 tons of eggs in the year. 
Ten cases went to a ton, and from 1000 to 1200 were in each 
case. This trade was betAveen Cherbourg, Harfleur, Caen, and 
Portsmouth. Forty millions of eggs were annually imported 
through this channel alone. Some one asks very emphatically, 
" Why should they not be produced at home ? "* 

* " The value in money of one seemingly unimportant article, eggs, taken, in 
the course of the year, from Ireland to tlie ports of Liverpool and Bristol, amounts 
to at least £100,000. The progress of this trade affords a curious illustration of 
the advantages of commercial facilities in stimulating production and equalizing 
prices. Before tlie establishment of steam-vessels, the market at Cork was most 
irregularly supplied with eggs from tlie surrounding district ; at certain seasons 
tliey were exceedingly abundant and cheap, but these seasons were sure to be 
followed by seasons of scarcity and high prices ; and at times, it is said to have 
been difficult to purchase eggs in the market at any price. At the first opening 
of tlie improved channel for conveyance to England, the residents at Cork liad to 
complain of the constant high price of this and other articles of farm produce ; 
but as a more extensive market was now permanently open to them, the farmers 
gave tlieir attention to the rearing and keeping of poultry ; and at the present 
time, eggs are procurable at all seasons in the market at Cork ; not, it is true, 
at the extremely low rate at which they could, formerly, be sometimes bought, 
but still at much less than the average price of the year. A like result has fol- 
lovv-ed the introduction of this great improvement in regard to the supply and cost 
of various other articles of produce. In the apparently unimportant article fcatlicrs, 
it may be stated, on the respectable authority above quoted, that the yearly impor- 
tation into England, from Ireland, reaches the amount of £500,000 sterling." — 
Porter's Progress of the JVation, vol. iii. 83. 



384 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Markets of a general character are held once or twice a week 
in all the principal towns ; and in those cases where the farms 
are small, the farmers' wives and daughters will be seen going 
six or eight miles on foot, or in vans, (i. e. lumber and freight 
coaches or wagons, ) to sell the week's product of their dairy or their 
poultry-yard. In this case, they are always found, with their neat 
baskets upon their arms, in a particular part of the market as- 
signed to them. Their neatness of dress and person commend 
them to attention. It requires some courage to elbow your way 
among them, if you do not design to be a purchaser ; and their 
chaffering and courteous solicitations to buy, with the emphatical 
recommendations of the articles for sale, together with the usual 
chatter and gossip to be expected among such a collection of 
gude wives and bonnie lasses, are sufficiently amusing. 



¥' 1 




mm 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



FIFTH REPOET. 



LXII. — GENERAL MARKETS. (Continued.) 

1. Market at Derby. — Nothing can be more miscellaneous 
than an English country market ; and my readers may be grati- 
fied with the partial account which I took of one of them as I 
went through it. This may be considered as a fair sample of 
others. Many of the goods are spread upon the ground, or under 
temporary stalls or booths erected for the purpose. Every seller 
pays a certain tax to the town for permission to sell, or for the 
load of goods brought into market. This toll is generally col- 
lected at the entrance of the town, as it is to this day in Lon- 
don, from ev^ery loaded vehicle which enters the city. 

This market was held in the open square at Derby, and the 
stalls were chiefly attended by women. 1. Nails and tacks. 
2. Old iron, chains, &c. 3. Cutlery of various sorts. 4. Shoes 
and boots. 5. Hats and caps. G. Hosiery. 7. Millinery. 
8. Iron ware. 9. Tin and copper ware. 10, Various kinds 
of female dress, caps, laces, &:.c. 11. Household furniture, old 
and new. 12. Brushes, mops, &c. 13. Bread. 14. Bacon 
and salted pork. 15. Muslins and caps in upturned umbrellas 
on the ground. 16. Children's toys. 17. Combs and paste. 
18. Flour. 19. Butter and cheese. 20. Fish of various kinds. 
21. Baskets. 22. Old books. 23. Sofas, bureaus, and tables, 
24, Crockery ware and glass ware of various kinds on the 
ground — a great many sellers. 25. Glass ware in abundance.. 
33 



386 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

26. Rabbits and game. 27. Poultry. 28. Meats of various 
kinds. 29. Vegetables and fruits. 30. Straw bonnets. 31. Re- 
freshments, gingerbread and ginger beer. 32. Wool in large 
packs. 33. Oranges, «&c. 34. Sieves, wire-baskets, and bird- 
cages. 35. Bandboxes and trunks. 36. Dolls. 37. New books 
and stationery. 38. Live birds. 39. Confectionary of various 
kinds. 40. Shoes, combs, &c. &c. 41. Saddles, bridles, col- 
lars, &c. 42. Rakes and agricultural tools. 43. Ginger pop, as 
usual. 44. Garden seeds. 45. Patent medicines, and especially 
worm lozenges, with about fifty bottles of worms preserved in 
spirit to evince the efficacy of the medicine — a terrific exhibi- 
tion. 46. Meats of various kinds. This comprehends but a 
small portion, and by no means all the varieties of stalls. The 
whole are dispersed by 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The popula- 
tion of Derby is about 37,000, and is chiefly a manufacturing 
population. 



LXIIi. — GENERAL REMARKS AND DIVISIONS OF THE 
SUBJECT OF ENGLISH FARMING. 

The agriculture of England presents itself under three great 
divisions — that of arable farming ; breeding and grazing, or feed- 
ing ; and dairying. I propose, in a great degree, to arrange my 
observations conformably to these three parts. 

There may be, with some of my readers, a misconception as to 
my plan, and, in consequence, expectations which will fail to 
be met. I do not undertake to give a complete system of farm- 
ing, and specific and exact directions in detail for the cultivation 
of every crop, and for every department of farm management. 
This would oblige me to execute a work vastly more extensive 
tiian that which I have undertaken. With respect to many of 
my readers, it could prove only a work of supererogation, for 
much of these details must be as familiar to them as the roads 
over their farms. I have always found, likewise, in respect to 
such directions, with which many books are crowded, extending, 
as they frequently do, to circumstances the most minute and in- 
significant, that they are often inapplicable, from the infinite diver- 



GENERAL REMARKS AND DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 387 

sity of circumstances which different cases present. Most men 
have their peculiar methods of accomplishing an object, which 
are in truth the best for them, because the most natural ; they 
would be hampered and embarrassed by other modes, less familiar, 
which might be prescribed. Unless, therefore, there is some 
striking originality, or some obvious and peculiar convenience, in 
the method suggested, it is only necessary to say in general what 
is to be done, and leave it to every man's own ingenuity to find 
out the best method of effecting it. 

My principal object is to point out, in European agriculture, 
such circumstances of difference between it and our own as 
may serve for the improvement of the agriculture of the United 
States, and to give such an account of the modes of manage- 
ment which prevail abroad, and which have been sanctioned by 
long practice and experience, as may facilitate their adoption, as 
far as the circumstances existing among us would render their 
adoption eligible. Every country, differing from other countries 
in its climate and temperature, in its soil, in its facility for pro- 
curing manures, in the character and supply of its labor, in its 
commercial and political relations, must be expected to have an 
agriculture in some respects peculiar to itself; and the practices 
of another country can only be partially adapted to its own. At 
the same time, the general principles of agricultural practice are 
every where the same ; and these, with the various modifications, 
which they may be expected to assume under different degrees 
of civilization, or different degrees of improvement in science and 
the arts, and their general and special application, cannot be too 
fully discussed and illustrated. We may learn much from others, 
who do things which we are never called to do ; who cultivate 
crops which we never cultivate, and never can cultivate ; and we 
may learn much from persons who do the same things which we 
do, but in a different Avay from ourselves — who cultivate the same 
crops, but by their own peculiar methods. We may learn much 
from those who cultivate better, and from those who do not culti- 
vate so well as ourselves. There is little hope in any thing, so 
far as any great improvement is concerned, for the man who im- 
plicitly follows any guide whatever. He must exercise his own 
reason, experience, observation, and judgment, in the application 
of rules which may be laid down for his direction. 

The celebrated Bakewell, whose name occupies a distinguished 



388 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



place in the annals of agricultural improvement, advised farmers, 
who would improve their cultivation and management, '-to go 
abroad and see what other people were about." Every observing 
man, who acts upon this advice, will find its advantages. 1 have 
often heard it said, and, if I thought it of any value in the case, I 
should say that my own experience confirmed it, that one of the 
best modes of understanding a book written in a foreign language 
is to read different versions or translations of it. The different 
forms of expressing the same thought adopted by different per- 
sons, or the different conceptions which different minds gather 
from the same expressions, whether in themselves right or wrong, 
may give us a clew to the true meaning, and correct many a mis- 
construction, or reveal and make light many a hidden or obscure 
passage. This analogy suggests the true mode in which an in- 
quisitive mind may gather instruction and knowledge from the 
practices of other men. 

Three things seem to me absolutely essential to human prog- 
ress in any and every art, in any and every science. The first 
is a profound conviction of the imperfection of all human knowl- 
edge ; the second, an entire distrust of all human infallibility ; the 
third, a perfect docility of mind, and a readiness to receive light 
and instruction from any and every quarter where it may be 
gathered, or by which it may approach us. Self-esteem, which, 
when combined with a good measure of benevolence and con- 
scientiousness, and so leading men to admit and respect the just 
claims of others, is a usefid and harmless sentiment, and prompts 
to many valuable enterprises, — when found excessive, and in a 
great degree unqualified, becomes an almost hopeless impedi- 
ment to improvement. 

I was told, before I left the country, by some American friends, 
that there was nothing in the way of agriculture to be learned in 
England, and that American agriculture was as improved as 
English agriculture. I had been but a short time in England 
before I heard, from various quarters, that in no country on the 
globe had agriculture reached that degree of improvement which 
it had attained in England ; and really in some cases, at public 
dinners, when, in the language of modern agricultural chemistry, 
the gases of the wine began to stimulate the brain, one wovdd be 
almost led to infer that agriculture itself was a recent invention 
of British genius ; and England presented herself to the en- 



VL REMARKS AND DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 389 

ciiaiiiea imagination leaning upon the handles of a plough, with 
piles of scientific books spread open at her feet, weeping, like the 
Macedonian hero, that she had no more worlds to conquer. A 
Flemish gentleman informs me that the agriculture of the Low 
Countries is altogether superior to that of any other part of the 
world. The Chinaman puts forth his claims to superiority, and 
shows pretty conclusively how much justice he has upon his 
side, when he points to the extraordinary and unquestionable 
fact, in his own country, of the largest amount of population sup- 
ported upon the smallest extent of land. In the midst of all this 
comes a German, of wide possessions, of long practical experience, 
and of much intelligence, and says to me, " The English are the 
most arrogant and conceited people under the sun ; and, in respect 
to agricultural improvement, they are far inferior to the Germans." 
Now, I do not feel it necessary to buckle on my armor and 
defend my good friends the English against language which, it 
must be admitted, is sufficiently peremptory and harsh. Nor do 
I deem it necessary to enter the lists \yith either of these parties, 
and endeavor to force him from his position. A diseased or in- 
ordinate self-esteem brooks no argument, and, in contending with 
national prejudices, the result can only be as it is, to use the 
rather coarse metaphor of Dr. Franklin, with a man who spits 
against the wind — that he spits in his own face. The first con- 
clusion to be drawn from these confident assumptions is, to dis- 
trust them all ; and the second is, by looking calmly and impar- 
tially at the improvements in which each claims a superiority, to 
gather instruction from the results of each one's experience, and 
new facilities and motives to enterprise, inquiry, and exertion. 



LXIV. — THE SOIL. 

Agriculture rests, first of all things, upon the nature of 
the soil which is to be cultivated. The soil is the basis on 
which the plant is to be supported, and the medium through 
which it is to receive the food by which its life is to be sus- 
tained, its growth promoted, and its progress advanced to matu- 
33* 



390 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

rity. Some scientific persons assert that the principal, if not the 
only, use of the soil is for the support of the plant, and that the 
food of the plant is derived wholly from the atmosphere. In the 
heat of their imaginations, they have even asserted that a man's 
fields may be enriched, or rather his growing crops may be fed, by 
the exhalations from his neighbor's manure-heap in an adjoining 
field. This would be very much like a man's being fed by 
standing over the grating of a hotel, or a cook's shop kitchen, in 
London, and inhaling the odors from the savory viands which 
are there in the process of preparation. How much flesh might 
be gained, and how long life might be sustained, in this way, we 
shall know when the experiment is once successfully tested. 
That plants receive a large proportion of their nourishment from 
the air, does not admit of a doubt. But the calculations of the phil- 
osophical chemists as to the amount of carbon Avhich the atmos- 
phere, taking it at its estimated height of forty-five miles, is ca- 
pable of supplying, (equal, according to some calculators, to the 
sum of seven tons to an acre ;) and the discussion of the great 
question how the atmosphere was first supplied with this great 
element in vegetable life ; and the apprehension which some 
persons express, on account of the supposed actual diminution 
of carbon, — though there appears to be enough, according to the 
most rigid calculations, to last several thousand years longer, — 
are, to say the least of them, sufficiently amusing ; but of what prac- 
tical use they can be to the common farmer, is not so easy to de- 
termine. If the animal creation is to be starved out some thou- 
sands of years hence, it need not give the present generation, 
whose average of life does not much exceed thirty-five years, 
any great personal concern. It will not be a harder fate than 
that which certain of what arc called the higher order of animals 
seem disposed to anticipate for some of their fellow-beings noAV 
living. But, whatever may be the part which the atmosphero 
performs in the food or nourishment of vegetables, it is beyond 
human power to affect or control it, unless we can grow our crops 
under bell-glasses or in greenhouses. The duke of Devonshire, 
in his magnificent conservatory at Chatsworth, three hundred 
feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and sixty-four feet in height, 
heated by seven miles of pipes, and covering, with its appurte- 
nances, a full acre of ground, might manage to charge the atmos- 
phere in which his plants respire with gases exactly suited to 



THE SOIL. 391 

their wants, and of the most nutritious character ; but, beyond thii- 
gigantic experiment, to which few can aspire, nothing certainly is 
to be hoped for. The farmer's whole business, as far as cultiva- 
tion is concerned, lies with the soil ; and upon the soil, and the 
skill and intelligence with which he manages it, must depend 
entirely his success. The notion, that plants receive a large por- 
tion of their nourishment through their leaves, — although some 
experiments, in my opinion not sufficiently decisive to determine 
the question, seem to favor it, — appears to me about as probable as 
that animals receive a large portion of their nourishment through 
their lungs. If they absorb carbon and discharge oxygen by day, 
they reverse the process, and absorb the oxygen of the atmos- 
phere, and discharge the carbon, by night ; and what portion of 
the latter in this way is assimilated, and made to form a part of 
the plant, (as far as I can understand the experiments which have 
been made,) does not as yet seem to be determined. I know the 
confidence with which this is affirmed, and, as a philosophical 
fact, I admit that it is of great interest and extremely worthy of 
inquiry. A friend, a few days since, said to me that he was con- 
scious, when immersed in water, of absorbing considerable water 
by means of the pores of the skin, and wished me to believe it. 
With great respect both for his intelligence and honesty, I still 
remain skeptical. What may be the case after death, when de- 
composition has commenced, is an entirely different matter. At 
present, I believe that the only way in which the food, by which 
the body is nourished, is received, is by the mouth ; always except- 
ing the case of the soldier at Washington, so fully reported in the 
medical journals, who had a hole in his stomach, by which, in 
order to watch the process of digestion, food was supplied, as a 
servant puts away cold meat in a cupboard. The fact is un- 
doubted that plants by day absorb carbonic acid and exhale oxy- 
gen, and that by night the process is reversed, and they inhale 
oxygen and expel carbonic acid ; but it does not seem so well 
established that in this way they obtain the carbon which is 
assimilated in their organism. At least, the supposition is so 
Ihtle favored by analogy, that I hope it may be lawful still to 
doubt. 

That the atmosphere contributes essentially to vegetation — that 
plants derive much of their nourishment and substance from the 
air, as I have already remarked, does not admit of a question : 



392 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

but. SO far as any practical use whatever is to be made of this 
fact, we must consider this nourishment as receiv^ed through the 
roots, and consequently through the medium of the soil in which 
these roots spread themselves, and the manures by which it is 
enriched. The soil therefore, as the basis of all vegetation, is the 
great object of the farmer's consideration. 



LXV. — THEORIES OF THE OPERATION OF THE SOIL. 

Soils may be considered in two points of view ; first, in ref- 
erence to their intrinsic or absolute character, and next, in ref- 
erence to the plants to the growth of which they are adapted. 
In a preceding number, in speaking of the chemical analysis of 
different soils, I think it appeared how little practical advantage 
had as yet been derived from any experiments in this way 
which had been made. The common properties of soil may be 
distinguished by the eye or the feel with persons of experience 
and practical observation ; but chemical examination may often 
be of the highest importance in detecting the presence of some 
mineral ingredient by which the cultivation of particular crops 
may be hindered or wholly prevented. A friend, eminent for his 
agricultural knowledge, pointed out to me a particular field, in 
which all attempts to grow wheat had been unsuccessful, while 
no such incapacity existed in the adjoining fields. In such a 
case as this, one would look to the chemical analysis of the soil 
to determine what ingredient was deficient, or what unfriendly 
element existed or predominated in the soil to prevent the growth 
of the plant ; and, this being ascertained, perhaps a remedy might 
be found. But the extraordinary and minute exactness to which 
the chemical analysis of the soil is sometimes carried, and upon 
which many scientific persons insist, it would seem, can serve 
little other purpose than that of producing despair of adapting 
our cultivation to such diversified and minute variations. 

What portion of the soil is abstracted for vegetable food is not 
yet determined ; and it is a singular fact, that, though analyt- 
ical chemistry has demonstrated that certain mineral substances 



THEORIES OF THE OPERATION OF THE SOIL. 393 

are taken up in the organism of plants and are essential in 
composing its structnre, and has proceeded to calculate the actual 
amount in pounds' weight abstracted by the growth of crops 
of a particular quantity, it has never yet, by an analysis of the 
soil before the planting, and as exact an examination after 
the crop has been removed, determined the loss in such case. 
Why this has not been done, or whether it be beyond the present 
power of chemical analysis to accomplish, — extraordinary as is the 
degree of perfection to which the science has been advanced, — 
must be left to others to answer. I am perfectly aware, of course, 
that the same identical soil cannot be subjected to the process 
of analysis, and then employed for the purposes of vegetation, 
Avith a view of ascertaining what has been lost or abstracted ; 
but an equal weight taken from the same place with that em- 
ployed for growing the plants might be examined, and after- 
wards that in which the plants were grown, so that, by this kind 
of comparison, the truth might be to a degree approximated. I 
am quite aware that it may be said, in this case, that the amount 
of mineral ingredients found in the produce would show the 
exact amount abstracted ; but it would be extremely interesting 
to know, by an examination of the soil, that these results exactly 
or nearly corresponded. But it is found that land left to itself 
for a lengtli of time recovers its fertility, and, after a lapse of two, 
three, or more years, the same crop, which failed when grown in 
immediate succession to another of the same kind, can be advan- 
tageously cultivated again. It would be highly curious, then, by 
retaining a portion of the land in which the plant had been 
grown, and leaving it exposed to the ordinary influences of light 
and heat, and rain and frost, to ascertain in what length of time 
the soil would recover its exhausted elements of fertility. This 
has not, within my knowledge, been attempted. 

The ingenious theory of DecandoUe, that the exudations or 
excrementitious matter from one kind of crop unfitted the ground 
for an immediate repetition of the same species of plant, seems 
now to be generally abandoned. It is a well-established prin- 
ciple, which practical men understand quite as well as the scien- 
tific, that a rotation of crops is indispensable to a successful 
agriculture ; and the theory is altogether probable that a par- 
ticular crop exhausts the soil of certain elements essential to its 
})rodtiction, which must be somehow supplied before a second 



394 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

crop of the same kind can be grown on the same land ; but it 
would be extremely interesting if the fact of such exhaustion, and 
its extent, could be more particularly determined by a chemical 
examination of the soil which has been cultivated. The beau- 
tiful theory of the great agricultural oracle of the day, that 
certain mineral ingredients which are always found in the ashes 
of plants, and which are carried off when these products are 
removed, and, being essential to vegetation, require to be either 
artificially replaced or supplied by a natural process, — and that, 
the land being suffered to rest, or applied to a different production, 
the ordinary influences of air and moisture in decomposing the 
rocks of the soil will renew the supply of these mineral elements 
which have been removed, — seems to offer the desired explana- 
tion ; and the experiments to which this theory has led, and 
which, under its influence, are now going on in various parts of 
the country, must presently determine it, and, what is better, 
show its proper application, and greatly simplify the processes of 
agriculture, reducing its expenses and giving comparative cer- 
tainty to its results. 

The operation of air and moisture upon the soil, the effects of 
light, and electricity, and frost, upon vegetation, all admit to be 
powerful ; but they are as yet only partially understood, and 
present subjects of the most interesting inquiry. In the progress 
of science, technically so called, we have much to hope for ; but 
in what it has already accomplished, enough has been gained to 
quicken, but very far from enough to satisfy, the appetite. One 
of the most eminent agricultural chemists of the present day, 
Boussingault, second perhaps to no other, has said,* "A great 
deal has been written since Bergman's time upon the chemical 
composition of soils. Cliemists of great talent have made many 
complete analyses of soils noted for their fertility ; still, practical 
agriculture has hitherto derived very slender benefits from labors 
of this kind. The reason of this is very simple ; the qualities 
which we esteem in a workable soil depend almost exclusively 
upon the mechanical mixture of its elements ; we are much less 
interested in its chemical composition than in this ; so that 
simple washing, which shows the relations between the sand and 
the clay, tells, of itself, much more that is important to us than 

* Rural Economy, Law's edition, p. 266. 



THEORIES OF THE OPERATION OF THE SOIL. 395 

an elaborate chemical analysis." This is certainly a great con- 
fession for an eminent chemist to make. 

To exemplify the different results to which the most scientific 
men arrive in these cases, I will refer both to Boussingault and 
Von Thaer in respect to a simple point, the presence of the car- 
bonate of lime in the soil as essential to the growth of a crop of 
wheat, on which subject the public mind has been so long, so 
generally, and so confidently made up. 

Von Thaer says,* " The richest argillaceous soil that I ever 
analyzed, the fertility of which was regarded as of the very richest 
quality, was taken from the right bank of the Elbe, some few 
miles from its mouth ; it contained eleven and a half parts in a 
hundred of humus, four and a half of lime, a great quantity of 
clay, a little coarse silica, and a considerable portion of very fine 
silica, which could only be separated from it by ebullition. It 
certainly possessed a great degree of cohesion, but, when moder- 
ately moistened, it was not very tenacious. It was made to bear 
the richest crops, as cabbages, wheat, autumnal corn, beans, &c. ; 
but every sixth year it was necessary to manure it thoroughly, 
and to give it a fallow." 

On the preceding page, he says, " The richest land I ever ana- 
lyzed, and which was taken from the marshes of the Oder, 
contained 192 parts in 100 of humus, 70 of clay, a little fine 
sand, and an almost imperceptible quantity of lime ; but the situ- 
ation of this land was too low, and it was too damp, to admit of a 
correct estimate being formed of its fertility." 

Boussingault says,f " I may remark generally, thai, from the 
whole of the analyses of good wheat lands which have hitherto 
been made, it appears that carbonate of lime enters in consid- 
erable quantity into their composition ; and theory, in harmony 
with practice, tends to show that it is advantageous to have this 
earthy salt as a constituent in the manures which are put upon 
soils that contain little or no lime." 

On the next page, % he says, " M. Berthier's analysis is still 
far from proving that the presence of lime in a soil is indispen- 
sable, inasmuch as beautiful wheat crops are grown in the neigh- 
borhood of Lisle without lime. In proof of this fact, I shall 
here cite the analysis of one of the most fertile soils in the world, 

* Vol. i. pp. 355, a54. \ Rural Economy, p. 294. \ p. 295. 



396 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the black soil of Tchornoizem, which Mr. Murchison informs 
us constitutes the superficies of the arable lands comprised 
between the 54th and 57th degrees of north latitude, along the 
left bank of the Volga as far as Tcheboksar, from Nijni to 
Kasan, and stretching over a still more extensive district upon the 
Asiatic side of the Ural Mountains. Mr. Murchison is of opinion 
that this land is a submarine deposit formed by the accumulation 
of sands rich in organic matters. The Tchornoizem is composed 
of black particles, mixed with grains of sand ; it is the best soil 
in Russia for wheat and pasturage ; a year or two of fallow will 
suffice to restore it to its former fertility after it has been 
exhausted by cropping ; it is never manured. 
" M. Payen found in this black and fertile soil, 

" Organic matter, . 6.95 (containing 2.45 per cent, of azote.) 

Silica, .... 71.56 

Alumina, ... 11.40 

Oxide of iron, . . 5.62 

Lime, 0.80 

Magnesia, . . . 1.22 

Alkaline chlorides, 1.21 

Phosphoric acid, . a trace. 

Loss, 1.24 

100.00" 

It is a little remarkable, judging from the analysis here given, 
that not only is the quantity of lime extremely minute, but even 
the phosphates, deemed so essential and indispensable to success, 
are also absent. 

Such are the diversified results to which even the most scien- 
tific are led ; and they are well adapted to admonish us of the 
imperfection of human knowledge, and the limitation of human 
powers. In Lincolnshire, where some of the best farming in 
England, as is universally admitted, is to be found, on a soil 
where the whole substratum was chalk, or the carbonate of lime, 
and where the mould or loam was not more than three or four 
inches deep, I found the farmers manuring the land, from pits 
dug in the field, with the very chalk by which the whole soil 
was underlaid. Upon my proposing the question to an eminent 
geological professor, then with me, much interested in agricul- 
ure, why this was done, he replied that the lime in the surface 



THEORIES OF THE OPERATION OF THE SOIL. 397 

soil had probably become exhausted by sinking down, through 
its greater specific gravity ,• but I could not see that there could 
be any difficulty hi the plants reaching it, where the whole body 
of lime lay within so short a distance of the surface. My own 
belief is, that, in this case, its operation is chiefly mechanical, 
and that its use was merely to consolidate the upper surface, and 
make it more adhesive for the roots of the plant, and that any 
other substance or marl, equally firm and consistent, would have 
served the same end. 

One of the most eminent chemists of the present day, distin- 
guished for the splendor of his attainments, seems to entertain, 
with no small confidence, the opinion that chemistry, including 
probably electricity and galvanism, is destined to solve all the 
secrets of vegetable and animal life ; that the various processes 
going on in nature are mere chemical processes ; and that any 
thing like a vital power above or beyond them all, and incapable 
of being solved by scientific investigation, is an hypothesis 
unworthy of an enlightened mind. It is certainly not for the 
human mind, as yet, to say what cannot be done ; and it would 
be quite premature for Science to assume that she has reached 
the ultimate boundaries of investigation, as it would be impious 
for her to claim the prerogatives of omniscience. But if I may 
in the case adventure the remark, — admiring as much as any one 
can the actual and wonderful achievements of science, — there 
still remains beyond even the farthest advances an impassable 
barrier, a terra incognita, which the most adventurous have not 
yet penetrated. It is easy to ascertain that certain substances 
have an affinity for each other, and science, with wonderful 
ingenuity, has determined the forms of combination under which 
they become united. The action or force by which they are 
brought together and there held may hereafter be explained, and 
may be ranked under some unknown chemical force ; but as yet 
any attempts to define, or even conjecture, its nature, have been 
wholly abortive. The simple and familiar fact, that the muscles 
are obedient to the will in moving the limbs, every one admits ; 
but in what this will consists, and how it is exerted, and how it 
effects its purpose, seems as yet as far from being reached, as on 
the day that the first child was born into the world. 

We are very apt to exclaim, in the ecstasy of the Grecian phi- 
losopher in the successful investigation of an interesting prob- 
34 



398 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



lem, " I liave found out! I have found out ! " when, witli all the 
apparent and flattering loosening of the strings, the Gordian knot 
remains as firm as ever. The processes of nature must be all 
simple enough to the great Mind which established them, but 
that is not the human mind. To compare a rushlight to the 
sun would fall infinitely short of expressing the difi"erence be- 
tween them. But it is obvious that so many circumstances must 
combine to accomplish even the simplest and most familiar 
results in nature, that, to a finite understanding, the simplest pro- 
cesses must be complicated. Any person of common observa- 
tion, who will go into a meadow or pasture, and observe the 
different varieties of plants which cover the ground, and remark 
how every one preserves its own peculiar distinctive character 
and form, and, though all growing upon the same soil and under 
the same external influences, each one extracts for itself, and for 
itself alone, that which its own peculiar character and constitu- 
tion require, — and that in size, and form, and color, and odor, 
and stem, and leaf, and fruit, and seed, there are essential, and 
inviolable, and invariable distinctions, — and that each one appro- 
priates to itself that which is required to form the stem, and to 
expand the leaves, and to throw in the coloring, and to mature 
the fruit, preserving always the perfect identity of the species, 
and furnishing in some cases a nutritious, and in others a poison- 
ous compound for animal life, — will, I think, be very far from 
considering the phenomena of vegetable life as simple, or resol- 
vable into those few chemical laws which have been established 
in what must at least be still considered as only the infancy of 
the science. 



LXVI. A MODERN DISCOVERY. 

It is lately stated, as one of the great discoveries of the age, 
that an eminent agricultural chemist has invented (or rather de- 
termined how they should be compounded) a variety of manures 
specially adapted to the particular crop to be cultivated, furnish- 
ing in exact measure and kind the food which is required. The 
professed object is to supply those mineral and alkaline sub- 



A MODERN DISCOVERY. 399 

Stances to the soil of which it has been exhausted in the process 
of cropping, and to furnish them in such form, and so combined, 
as that they may be best taken up by the plant, and presented to the 
plant only so gradually as the habits of the plant may require. 
This eminent chemist claims, to use his own words, '• to have 
found means to give to every soluble ingredient of maiune, by its 
combination with others, any degree of solubility without alter- 
ing its effect on vegetation. I give, for instance, the alkalies in 
such a state as not to be more soluble than gypsum, which, as is 
well known, acts through many years, even as long as a particle 
of it remains in the soil. The mixture of manures has been 
adapted to the mean quantity of rain in this country, (England ;) 
the manure which is used in summer has a greater degree of solu- 
bility than that used in winter. Experience must lead to further 
results, and in future the farmer will be able to calculate the 
amount of produce of his fields, if temperature, want of rain, &c., 
do not oppose the manure coming fairly into action. I must, 
however, observe that the artificial manures in no way alter the 
mechanical condition of the fields ; that they do not render a 
heavy soil more accessible to air and moisture ; for such fields the 
])orous stable manure will always have its great value ; it can be 
given together with the artificial manure." * 

With the highest respect for this eminent man, whose scien- 
tific labors have given a spur to agricultural inquiry and experi- 
ment unknown in any former time, one cannot but remark the 
convenient reservation afforded by the qualification " if tempera- 
ture, want of rain, &c., do not oppose the manures coming fairly 
into action ; " and the recommendation to apply the stable ma- 
nure together with the artificial manure, and the statement, in 
another place, that certain manures "act far more favorably on the 
production of grain crops, especially if they are added to the 
animal excrements, and are given to the fields at the same time," 
present sagacious and certainly very safe advice. They slightly 
remind one of a custom formerly prevalent in some Catholic 
countries on the Continent, when, at the opening of the spring, 
the priest was accustomed to go over the fields of his parishion- 
ers to give them his blessing ; but when he came to fields which 
were exhausted and sterile, he was very careful to add, " This 
needs manure." The doctrine of the occasional and temporary 

* Liebiw on Artificial Manures. 



400 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

exhaustion of the soil, by the continued repetition of the same 
crop, of ingredients or elements important to its growth and 
maturity, certainly seems reasonable and well established ; but 
the dread which seems to possess some minds of an exhaustion 
which would doom the soil to perpetual barrenness, without some 
extraordinary supply of the materials of which it has been de- 
prived, may have more ground to rest upon, when the birds in 
any country or locality are unable to find lime to form the shells 
of their eggs, and animals become mere lumps of gum-elastic for 
want of material to form their bones.* 

There is a recuperative power in nature by which it would seem 
that any soil, originally adapted to the growth of any particular 
plant, by rest, or by the growth of other and different plants, be- 
comes again fitted for the original cultivation. That this may 
be hastened by artificial manures, there can be no doubt. That 
science may at last achieve the great discovery of a way by 
which the same plant may be cultivated uninterruptedly year 
after year on the same soil, is certainly to be hoped for. 
Whether this object is already accomplished by this distin- 
guished philosopher, is now to be submitted to actual experiment 
by those who can afford to purchase this artificial manure. 

* The fears which seem to haunt some minds, lest, by cultivation, the exhaus- 
tion of the soil should proceed so far as ultimately to put even the existence of 
the human race in peril, from famine, may be useful enough in exciting men to 
frugality in the saving of manures, and enterprise and industry in their applica- 
tion ; but seem as little warranted as the sanguine expectations of the Millerites, 
who looked for the end of the world in April, 1843, and some of whom, having 
got their white robes fitted, and tlieir wings spread, seemed to be rather out of 
temper that their predictions failed, and that Heaven in its mercy granted the 
"poor dogs," the unbelievers, a short reprieve, Voltaire, when admonished that 
coffee was a sIoav poison, remarked that it must be very slow indeed, for he had 
drunk it constantly for seventy years. Mr. Lyell, in his late Tour in the United 
States, (which, let me remark by the way, is written in the calm spirit of a philo- 
sophical observer, and does honor to his candor and sense of justice, as well as to 
his scientific attainments,) is of opinion that the time occupied in the recession of 
Niagara Falls from the shores of Lake Ontario, where they once were, to their 
present position, could not have been less than 35,000 years ; and that the fossil 
remains, both vegetable and animal, now found there, show that even this period, 
startling as it may seem, belongs to a modern and not a primeval era. How idle 
in respect to tliesc matters, seem, then, the calculations of beings, who 



■ are such stuff 



As dreams are made of, and whose little lile 
Is rounded with a sleep ! " 



SOILS OF GKEAT BRITAIN. 401 

These compounds are advertised for sale at £10 sterling, 
or $50, per ton, and a ton, it is said, will be sufficient for 
manuring four acres. Some agricultural friends, who have ap- 
plied them, have promised me the results of their experiments. 
My readers shall have them when they are received. Such a 
discovery would certainly constitute a great advance in agricul- 
tural improvement. I shall not venture to predict, but patiently 
wait the issue, not deeming it necessary to caution those, whose 
funds are limited, against large investments. It seems, from 
some examples already given, that, Avith time, the soil itself, by 
its own inherent energies, for which we cannot be sufficiently 
grateful, will recover its exhausted fertility. In the mean time, 
its use is never to be abandoned ; for the improved agriculture of 
modern times has certainly made one great advance in utterly 
condemning a naked fallow, and the soil may be occupied with 
<jqual advantage, both to itself and its cultivators, by a succession 
of tenants. 



LXVII. — SOILS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

The soils of Great Britain, in two or three respects, differ essen- 
tially from the soils of the United States. In Great Britain, or 
rather in England, — for I believe the formation does not extend 
into Scotland or Ireland, — there is a vast amount of chalk, com- 
ing, in some cases, directly to the surface, and turned up by the 
plough ; in other cases, formed a few inches below a surface of 
mould or loam, interspersed, in some cases, with an infinite 
number of small or broken flint-stones. We have much cal- 
careous soil in the United States, much of the primitive and 
secondary limestone formation, but I know of no deposits of 
chalk. I have not seen in Great Britain any soils of pure sand, 
such as we find on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, on the eastern 
shores of New Jersey, and in the South Atlantic States. Nor do 
I know in the United States of any such mountain peat, or bog, 
as is to be found in parts of England, and in vast tracts of Ireland. 
In the latter country there are many hills, of very considerable 
elevation, and in Scotland and England likewise, covered withi 
34* 



402 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

pure bog-peat to the depth, I have seen in some instances, of 
ten or twelve feet, and holding water like a sponge. Of course, 
these must have formed, in some distant period, valleys, or level 
surfaces, where vast forests once stood, and, falling down, passed 
into decay, succeeded by those plants which constitute the prin- 
cipal substance of which these beds are composed ; and then 
afterwards have been elevated above the surrounding country by 
some great convulsion of nature. These hills are entirely desti- 
tute of trees, and covered only with furze, or heather, or moss. 
I know of no examples in the United States of deep deposits of 
peat being found upon elevated summits ; but there are likewise 
in Ireland, as in the United States, very extensive tracts of level 
peat-bog shut in by high grounds, saturated by water, and of 
unascertained depth. There are likewise in England some 
extensive peat-bog meadows, of the improvement of which I 
shall presently treat ; but such tracts, within my observation, are 
not common. 

There are likewise in England immense extents of alluvial 
soil. The valley of the Thames, for a great part of its extent, is 
clearly alluvial ; so are the flat lands upon the Humber and its 
various branches ; so are the immense tracts, denominated fen 
lands, in Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire, and Cambridgeshire ; so is 
the beautiful valley of the Trent, and the valley in which York 
is situated ; so likewise is the rich White Horse Valley, as it is 
termed, in the county of Berkshire. Some of these are a stilf, 
adhesive clay, of the most tenacious character ; others a deep, 
rich loam ; and some of them have been redeemed from the sea 
by a process called warping, which I shall presently describe. 
These are composed of what is here called silt, which consists- 
of a very fine sand, and muddy or aluminous matters, held in 
suspension by the water of the tides, and brought down likewise 
by the waters of rivers coming from the interior and swollen 
with rains, which have swept down the cultivated hills, and 
I obbed them of some portion of their riches. These lands are 
justly deemed some of the most fertile in the kingdom. 

There are likewise extensive tracts of soil resting upon the 
red sandstone, like some of the soils in New Jersey, producing 
kirge crops of the richest herbage in pasture, and fine crops 
under tillage ; but of the common granitic soils of New England 
I have met with few examples. There are, however, I believe, 



CLASSIFICATION OF SOILS. 403 

extensive tracts of them, especially in the north. A geological 
survey of the Island of Great Britain has been executed with 
great skill, and the various geological formations distinctly indi- 
cated on a map ; but such have been the extraordinary convul- 
sions on the earth's surface, that the geological lines are not an 
infallible guide to the character of the soil. It may be safe, in 
general, to infer the character of the soil from the nature of the 
rocks prevalent in any particular locality ; but the diluvial and 
alluvial deposits often differ entirely from the character of the 
rocks which lie beneath them. No knowledge of the geological 
formation of a country, therefore, — so far as its cultivation, and 
the general character of the crops to be raised, are concerned, — 
will supply the place of personal observation and experience. 

If the nature of the soil were the only circumstance to be 
taken into consideration in determining the character of the 
agriculture to which it is adapted, the mode of cultivation, and 
the crops to be grown upon it, the whole subject would evidently 
be greatly simplified ; but the climate, including heat and mois- 
ture, and the aspect and elevation of the land, are quite as much 
concerned in every question connected v/ith this subject. 



LXVIII. — CLASSIFICATION OF SOILS. 

For all practical purposes, soils may be ranked under five 
different heads — sandy, clayey, calcareous, peaty, and loamy. 
I purposely avoid all scientific distinctions, and use such terms 
as even the commonest farmer will understand. A sandy soil 
is that in which sand abounds ; clayey, in which clay ; calca- 
reous, in which lime in some form prevails ; peaty, in which 
peat ; loamy, in which a rich loam abounds. These soils are 
sometimes found so combined, that it might be difficult to desig- 
nate their character by any one of these general terms. In some 
places, they are found in almost a pure state. In general, where 
there is found in a soil 80 per cent, of sand, it must be pro- 
nounced a sandy soil ; and so the clay, the peat, or the lime ; but 
it is not always easy to class a soil which is of a mixed char- 



404 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

acter, and say what kind of element predominates. By sight 
and feeling, however, practical men are able to form an opinion 
of a soil upon which it may be safe to act. Besides the principal 
elements, to which I have referred, there is often found some 
mineral ingredient, which may seriously affect the character of 
the soil, and the degree of the presence of which can only be 
determined by scientific examination. Iron, copper, or mineral 
coal, is in general sufficiently indicated to the eye, or shows 
itself in the water which percolates the soil. The different 
forms, too, in which lime presents itself in the soil, whether 
as chalk, or gypsum, or magnesian limestone, are all to be con- 
sidered in determining the character of a soil. 



LXIX. — PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SOIL. 

In addition to the characteristics of a soil of which I have 
spoken, there are other circumstances, usually denominated the 
physical properties of a soil, by which its fertility, or the kind 
of cultivation to which it may be proper to subject it, are to be 
in a great degree determined. These are its wetness or dryness, 
its power to absorb or retain moisture, its consistency or friability, 
and its temperature. All these matters are essentially connected 
with the fertility of a soil, and the kind of crops to which it is 
to be applied. 

1. Wetness of a Soil. — Wet soils, or soils a considerable 
part of the time under water, produce a coarse herbage of little 
value to stock — in many cases scarcely sufficient to support life, 
and rendering scarcely any nourishment. The manure of 
animals fed upon the produce of such soils is comparatively 
worthless. It has been found, likewise, by repeated experiments, 
that water allowed to remain upon land for any length of time 
is injurious to vegetation, when the rapid transition of water 
over the land might be highly beneficial. An exception, of 
course, is to be made where the passage of a turbid stream or 
Hood is arrested long enough to afford opportunity for the depo- 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SOIL. 405 

sition of the enriching matter with which its waters are charged. 
The effect of too much water is to reduce the temperature of 
the soil, to obstruct the access of the external air to the roots 
of the plants, and, in fact, to macerate and destroy the texture of 
the finest kinds of herbage. Perhaps it would be a more simple 
statement, and equally just, to say that the aquatic plants are, 
with some exceptions, not adapted to the nourishment of animal 
life, and that those which are most suited for the food of man 
or beast, are not suited to be grown under water. Water is of 
great importance to their sustenance and growth. They cannot 
live without it ; but they cannot live in it. As to the human 
being, it may be of the highest benefit, both as an internal and 
external application ; but there is soon an end to the matter when 
man is plunged into water, and kept under it. 

All hope of cultivation or improvement must be abandoned, 
where land is under water any considerable portion of the time, 
or where it is fully saturated with water, like a sponge. 

2. Power to absorb Moisture in a Soil. — I may remark, 
in the next place, that the fertility of a soil very greatly depends 
upon the power of the soil to absorb and to retain moisture. 
Some very distinguished men have maintained that the fertility 
of a soil may be measured by this power, an opinion which, it 
may be said, (without meaning a pun.) has much ground to rest 
upon, but which cannot be admitted without considerable quali- 
fications. Moisture and wetness are in this case to be carefully 
distinguished. A soil consisting almost wholly of sand possesses 
no retentive powers ; and though of all other soils the most 
absorbent, yet the water passes through it as through a sieve. 
Clay, on the other hand, is extremely retentive of water, often to 
the prejudice of the vegetation which grows upon it. Liebig, 
in a recent treatise upon artificial manures, to which I have 
already referred, seems to be of opinion that the system of drain- 
age now prosecuted with so much enterprise in England may be 
carried to an injurious extent, so as to induce the too rapid pas- 
sage of the soluble manures which are applied, and before they 
can be taken up by, or have performed their proper office to, the 
growing plants. As every thing which this distinguished gen- 
tleman asserts is now deemed oracular in the agricultural world, 
1 will quote his observations at large. 



406 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

" The reason why, in certain years, the influence of the best 
and most plentiful manuring is scarcely perceptible, is that, 
during the moist and rainy springs and summers, the phosphates 
and other salts with the alkaline bases, as also the soluble amnio- 
niacal salts, are entirely or partially removed. A great amount of 
rain and moisture removes, in the greatest quantity, the very 
substances which are most indispensable to the plants at the time 
they begin to mature and form seeds. The system of draining 
which of late has been so extensively followed in England 
brings the land into the state of a great filter, through which the 
soluble alkalies are draion off in consequence of the percolation 
of rain, and it must, therefore, become more deficient in its 
soluble eflicacious elements. Attentive farmers must have ob- 
served that, after a certain time, the quality of the grain on land 
laid dry according to this principle deteriorates ; that the produce 
of grain bears no due proportion to the produce of straw." 

" What is more evident, after these remarks, than that intelligent 
farmers must strive to give to the soil the manuring substances 
in such a state as to render possible their acting favorably on 
the plants the whole time of their growth. Art must find out 
the means of reducing the solubility of the manuring substances 
to a certain limit, — in a word, of bringing them into the same 
state in which they exist in a most fertile virgin soil, and in 
which they can be best assimilated by the virgin plants." 

" The attention which I have paid to this subject has been 
crowned with success. I have succeeded in combining the 
efiicacious elements of manure in such a manner as that they 
will not be washed away ; and thus their efficacy will be doubled. 
Owing to this, the injurious consequences of the present system 
of draining are removed ; agriculture is placed upon as certain 
principles as well arranged manufactories ; and, instead of the 
uncertainty of mere empiricism, the operations of agriculture 
may be carried on with security ; and, in place of waiting the 
results of our labors with anxiety and doubt, our minds will be 
filled with patience and confidence." 

Such are the brilliant visions which are held up before the 
mind of the farmer ; and such is the distrust which this great 
man would tlirow over the enterprising practice of draining. It 
is not quite easy to understand how the plants are to take up 
their food but in a condition of the most minute solution; nor 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SOIL. 407 

how, if they are dissolved, they are to be kept from being 
washed away. It is not for any finite mind, in cases which 
admit of any doubt, to say what is possible or what is impos- 
sible ; and it would be premature to condemn that which comes 
recommended upon such high authority, and is yet to be made 
the subject of experiment. After the extraordinary and most 
beneficial results which have been efl'ected by the thorough 
draining of all superfluous wet from the soil, the agriculturists 
may, however, pursue the system with a good degree of con- 
fidence, especially if a mode has been discovered of combining 
the alkalies and the phosphates, that they shall not be so dis- 
solved by rain and wet as to be washed away, and yet that they 
shall be so dissolved that they may be taken up by the plant as 
its wants may require. Within the last month of writing this, 
I have seen, on a thin, dry, and light soil, in which sand 
abounded, the beneficial efi'ects of thorough drainage, where, on 
a field of turnips, the crop of the drained portion, with no other 
difl^erence than the drainage, was evidently better, by one half, 
than that on the undrained part. If it be the fact that soils of a 
friable or porous nature are, in this way, liable to lose these 
beneficial elements by rains and wet, it would seem extraordi- 
nary that the fact had not been sooner discovered, and their 
deficiency and destitution made evident. I would not express 
these doubts in any captious spirit, knowing how much agricul- 
ture must, in the end, owe to science, and being ready to hail 
with the highest satisfaction any triumph it may achieve. 

3. Consistency and Friability or Soils. — The next point 
to be considered, in the character of a soil, is its consistency or 
friability. A soil, if too closely packed, — which soils of almost 
pure clay are liable to be, — not only forbids the passage of water, 
which it holds stagnant upon its surface, but is impervious to 
the roots of plants, especially of those plants which send their 
roots downwards in search of nourishment. It is likewise ex- 
tremely difiicult to be worked in wet weather, being not easy to 
move upon, adhering to the feet of the workmen and the horses, 
and to the implements, and in dry weather being sunburnt and 
hard, and, when turned up, remaining in large and unmanageable 
clods. In the northern parts of the United States, where the 
frosts are severe, plants are always liable to be thrown out, and 



408 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

their roots torn asunder, by the violent disruption of the clods. 
On the other hand, soils may be too fine, powdery, and friable, 
being subject to be blown by the winds, being too little retentive 
of moisture, and therefore liable to be severely affected by 
drought, and failing to furnish a sufficiently strong hold for the 
roots of those plants which spread themselves upon the surface. 
A soil neither excessively consistent and close, nor excessively 
friable, is undoubtedly to be preferred. All pent-up or stagnant 
water, either on the surface or within the ground, is unquestion- 
ably prejudicial to a healthy vegetation ; and a freedom or porosity 
of soil, so as to admit the free access of the air, is an important and 
valuable feature. It seems to be a well-established fact, that a 
newly turned up surface attracts moisture from the atmosphere ; 
and the more friable a soil is, the more surface it exposes to the 
external air. In condensing the aqueous particles floating near the 
surface, it thus procures for the plants growing upon it some of the 
most important elements of vegetation. This is undoubtedly the 
secret of the success in forwarding vegetation by frequent stirring 
of the earth around plants even in time of drought, especially 
plants with broad leaves, such as cabbages and lettuces, which, 
by means of their expansive foliage, protect the earth underneath 
them from the direct rays of the sun. 

4. Temperature of Soils. — It is not my intention to give a 
treatise on this subject, nor to extend my remarks beyond such 
notices as will best explain the great improvements in cultiva- 
tion, or the management of soils, which have been undertaken 
and accomplished here, and which may properly be said to con- 
stitute the glory of English husbandry. I proceed, then, to ob- 
serve, that another important property of soils may be said to be 
their temperature. This is a matter of great importance in respect 
to vegetation. Heat, as well as moisture, are both equally essential 
to vegetable life and growth. The temperature of a soil would 
seem to be very little under human control ; yet undoubtedly 
much may be done in some ways for this object. At certain 
seasons of the year, on the approach of frost, vegetation is arrested, 
and at all seasons, in certain altitudes, cultivation is hopeless. In 
Great Britain, this limit is reckoned at fifteen hundred feet above 
the level of the sea; but the cultivation of wheat cannot be rec- 
ommended above six hundred feet. The main source of heat to 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SOIL. 409 

the soil is the rays of the sun. Whatever may be thought of 
that immense internal fire of liquid matter supposed to exist within 
the centre of the globe, and occupying a large portion of it, while 
we are resting only upon a thin outward crust, yet little of this 
heat is felt at the surface ; and animal and vegetable life is de- 
pendent upon that magnificent orb which the Creator seems to 
have placed in the firmament as the emblem of his own inex- 
haustible, impartial, and widely expansive goodness, which bids 
the sleeping earth, in the spring time, arise as it were from the 
dead, and put on the habiliments of vegetable splendor and 
beauty, which fills the luscious vine of summer with its rich 
clusters, and gilds the autumnal harvest with a beneficent and 
matchless glory. 

The temperature of the soil is then dependent upon external 
influences, — upon the sun primarily, and the atmosphere as 
affected by the heat of the sun. This temperature is, of course, 
affected by the condition of the soil as to wetness or dryness, 
and somewhat by its inclination and aspect. 

The more direct are the rays of the sun, the stronger the heat 
produced by thom ; and the lighter or brighter the surface on 
which they fall, the less strongly are they absorbed, and the 
more strongly reflected. In judging of the fertility of a soil, 
with some persons its color is always matter of consideration ; 
black soils absorbing heat much more strongly than white or 
light-colored soils. A rich garden black mould is a great ab- 
sorber of heat. A sandy soil, or soil composed mainly of silex, 
becomes soon he?ited, first, from its dryness, the water passing 
directly through it, and, second, from the smooth surface and 
crystalline form of the particles of which it is composed ; the 
heat is increased by being reflected from one side to the other, 
as in a tin oven. The temperature of a soil is materially affected 
by its condition is to moisture or dryness. This is obvious to 
every one. Buv there is another curious fact in this case, not so 
generally observBd — that water is a non-conductor of heat down- 
wards. It would be difficult to make a kettle of water boil by 
making a f.r,^- over it. So the sun's heat upon a wet surface is 
repelled, p.iul not transmitted ; and while evaporation may be 
going or -A the surface, the lower strata remain cold. The tem- 
peratdv'.' jf a soil is materially affected by its aspect. Hence 
soils iy '/ g to the south, receiving as they do the more direct 
35 



410 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

rays of the sim, are much warmer than those to the north, and. 
in both cases, the temperature is affected by the angle of inch- 
nation at which the land presents itself towards, or recedes from. 
the rays of the sun ; the steeper it is towards the south the 
warmer — the steeper it is towards the north, for obvious reasons, 
the colder the temperature. It is well known, in respect to the 
tenderer fruits — such as peaches, for example — in high northern 
latitudes, that the crop is generally more certain on the northern 
than on the southern side of a hill, for the reason that, the frost 
continuing longer and more constantly, they come into flower 
at a later period, and therefore are less liable to the dangers of 
being repeatedly frozen and thawed, and to be cut off by the 
late frosts in the spring.* 



LXX. — PEATY SOIL. 

There are two other varieties of soil to which I have referred, 
upon which I shall take leave to make some passing remarks. 
The first is the peaty soil, which is composed wholly of vege- 
table matter, and is sometimes found of a great depth. It is 
evidently formed of the deposit and decay of vegetables, and in 
different stages of decomposition, — some being reduced to a fine 
and compact pulp, which cuts like butter, other being only par- 
tially decayed, and retaining the original forms of its leaves and 
stems. If vegetable matter were, as is often reckoned, the best 
food of plants, it would seem as though uo soil could be so 
fertile as that of peat. This is not found to be the case, how- 
ever, but for reasons not so well established as the fact. The 
plams of which peat land is composed have perished under 
water. It may be said, therefore, that they are rather in a state 
of preservation than decay, and this is quite obvious from the 
fact, that the water is required only to be drained out, or dried 
up in them, and they furnish a fuel equal to wood. " From the 

* "In the country in whicli I reside, it has been remarked, that those portions 
of land whicli receive the first rays of the morning sun are more apt to suffer 
from the effects of white frosts than others, because the sudden transition from 
cold to heat sensibly affects delicate plants." — French Trans, of Von Thaer. 



PEATY SOIL. 411 

nature of its formation under the surface of water, it acquires a 
portion of tannin, which has the property of preserving animal 
and vegetable matter from decomposition." It may be, likewise, 
that the species of plants of which, in general, these preserved 
plants are composed, being of an aquatic nature, they do not 
form the most suitable nourishment to plants of a different 
description. I speak in this case according to the vulgar appre- 
hension of the manner in which plants are fed, well knowing 
that the received doctrine is, that the organic portions of plants 
are obtained wholly from the atmosphere, and that the soil 
supplies only their mineral ingredients. Yet it must be ad- 
mitted that, in ordinary cases, the fertility of a soil essentially 
corresponds to the amount of vegetable matter found in it, 
whether it supplies, in any degree, the actual substance of the 
plant, or, by its gradual decay, be merely the vehicle of transmit- 
ting for its nourishment the gases out of which its substance is 
to be composed. It is certain, however, Avhatever may be the 
philosophical reason in the case, that pure unmanufactured peat 
does not form a nourishing soil or substance for plants, other 
than those to which a wet soil is particularly congenial, and that 
it cannot be made so, but under a particular management, which 
I shall presently describe. The vegetable matter of which peat 
consists, being once thoroughly reduced, and mixed with other 
substances of an alkaline character, is rendered a most enriching 
manure for most kinds of land, though a much less substantial 
one than is generally supposed. One of its great uses is that 
of an absorbent, taking up the liquid matters which would other- 
wise be lost. 

Immense bogs have been redeemed, and brought into a state 
of productive cultivation, in England ; and, of late, these improve- 
ments have been going on with greater success than usual. In 
Ireland, such improvements have proceeded to a great extent, 
and the Waste-Land Improvement Company have at this time, 
in one place, five thousand acres of bog in the process of im- 
provement. This place I had the pleasure to visit, and shall 
presently speak of what has been, and what is proposed to be, 
accomplished. The peat-bog, under favorable circumstances, as 
I have seen in the United States, as well as in England, may be 
rendered in the highest degree productive and profitable. The 
bog of salt marshes is of a different character from the fresh 



412 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

water peat-bog. This, however, is composed of vegetable matter 
in the main, being altogether marine plants, which have served 
as a kind of net-work to collect the earthy matter brought among 
them by the tide. The quantity of salt intermixed with these 
deposits gives them a peculiar character. They are favorable 
to the production of plants congenial to them ; but other plants 
cannot be made to grow upon them until they become thoroughly 
decomposed ; and, in that case, no soils yield a more luxuriant 
or richer vegetation. In truth, they require to be reduced to the 
state of fine mould, and the greater portion of the saltness ex- 
hausted, which time itself will effect where they are kept from 
the access of the tide, in order to be in a condition favorable to 
the groAvth of other than marine or saline plants. 



LXXI. — LOAMY SOILS. 

Next to peaty soils, I have to speak of Avhat are called loamy 
soils. These are not very well defined. There has been much 
debate as to what constitutes loam or mould ; but if it be difficult 
to define it with exactness, there is no great difficulty with prac- 
tical men in understanding what is intended by it. I suppose 
the proper definition of nioidd to be decayed vegetable matter, 
and of loam to be that portion of the soil in which this mould, or 
decayed vegetable matter, (or humus, as it is technically called,) 
is mixed up with other common mineral elements, such as sand, 
clay, and lime, and in a state of fineness and equal or diffusive 
commixture. I do not know that any great error would be com- 
mitted by considering mould and loam as synonymous, and by 
saying that mould or loam is a rich, unctuous, dark-colored mat- 
ter, abounding in vegetable as well as mineral substances, found 
usually on the surface of fields, especially of those which have 
been cultivated, or those which are entirely in a state of nature ; 
and of various depths, from inches to feet. In the rich valley of 
the Mississippi, I have seen it extending to a depth of twelve and 
eighteen feet, and of extraordinary richness. In cases of pure 
sand 01 clay, little or nothing of this is to be found. In chalk 



HUaiUS, OR VEGETABLE MOULD. 413 

soils, its depth is usually very small. It coustitiUes the rich and 
fertile upper stratum of a soil which is usually cultivated by the 
plough ; and it becomes gradually deepened as the land is culti- 
vated and manured. The depth of this loam or mould may be 
considered, in general, as the best test of the goodness of the soil, 
or its productive character. I know that this is sometimes 
denied. The dark-colored condition of the upper stratum is not 
always an indication of mould, for occasionally there is met with 
an upper stratum of deep sand, colored with some mineral sub- 
stance, which is almost utterly barren, and very difficult of im- 
provement; but ordinarily, other circumstances being equal, the 
surest test of the fertility of a soil is the depth of the vegetable 
mould or loam on the surface. 

Loamy soils receive their particular designation from the 
mineral substance with which they abound ; thus we speak of 
sandy loams, or clayey loams, from the predominance of either 
of these substances in the soil ; and undoubtedly the richest of 
all soils is that in which there is an intermixture of various 
elements — some one says, where lime, clay, and sand, are mixed 
in equal proportions with mould, or decayed vegetable matter ; 
but it is not certain that the exact proportions are ascertained. 



LXXII. — HUMUS, OR VEGETABLE MOULD. 

The substance designated as vegetable mould, or humus, in 
its pure or unmixed state, is not an infallible indication of the 
fertility of a soil, as I have already stated in respect to peat 
formations. Liebig refers to the soils in the neighborhood of 
Mount Vesuvius, composed wholly of matter thrown from the 
crater, as highly fertile. " The land in the vicinity of Vesuvius 
may be considered as the type of a fertile soil, and its fertility is 
greater or less, in different parts, according to the proportion of 
clay or sand which it contains. The soil which is formed by 
the disintegration of lava cannot possibly, on account of its 
origin, contain the smallest trace of vegetable matter ; and yet 



414 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

it is well known that, when the volcanic ashes have been exposed 
for some time to the influence of air and moisture, a soil is grad- 
ually formed in which all kinds of plants grow with the greatest 
luxuriance. This fertility is owing to the alkalies which are 
contained in the lava, and which, by exposure to the weather, 
are rendered capable of being absorbed by plants. Thousands 
of years have been necessary to convert stones and rocks into 
the soil of arable land ; and thousands of years more will be 
requisite for their perfect reduction — that is, for the complete 
exhaustion of their alkalies." 

This is a v^ery extraordinary statement, and, without implying 
any distrust of the authority on which it is made, is certainly 
not consonant to general experience. General experience would 
seem to show that soils without any vegetable mould are not 
productive, and most jiractical farmers would prefer, of all others, 
a soil where the vegetable matter, well compounded, existed in 
abundance, forming, as it is termed, a deep and rich loam. But 
it would seem that, in the case to which Liebig refers, thousands 
of years are necessary to render a mass of lava fertile, and in 
such a case it might be fairly presumed that some vegetable 
matter might accumulate and produce the desired mixture. I 
do not presume to call in question an authority so distinguished, 
and for which no man has more respect than myself; but I 
could wish that we had more facts in the case, or that they were 
more definitely stated. 

Until recently, almost all agriculturists, both the scientific and 
practical, have considered the quantity of vegetable matter 
contained in a soil as the test of its fertility. A prejudice so 
universal, and so long established, would seem, on those grounds, 
strongly entitled to respect. It has been as well understood 
that vegetable matter alone, as in the case of peat, and this but 
partially decomposed, was not fertile. But the opinion of the 
connection of vegetable mould wnth fertility applied to vege- 
table matter in a state of comminution and intermixture with 
other elements of a soil, and here the fertility of the land has 
been understood to bear a very close relation to its predominance 
or deficiency. Peat itself, when thoroughly decomposed, has 
been found a most efficient manure. The effects constantly 
accruing from the application of decayed vegetable matter to the 



HUMUS, OR VEGETABLE MOULD. 415 

soil, from the application of the dung of cattle, which is in the 
main decomposed vegetable matter, and the extraordinarily 
luxuriant vegetation always appearing upon dung-heaps left on 
the field, or upon places where dung-heaps have been formed, 
seemed to speak the same language. The supposition has been, 
that this vegetable matter constituted, in fact, a part of the food 
of plants, and went to assist in forming their substance. 

The doctrine of Liebig denies directly the supposition that 
this humus, or vegetable matter, is taken up as the food of |)lants, 
because, where a forest grows, the vegetable matter in and upon 
the soil actually increases, instead of diminishing ; but then, 
although, in the case above referred to, of the volcanic soils near 
Mount Vesuvius, one might be led to infer that he considered it 
of no moment, yet this I think would be doing him an injustice. 
He does consider the humus of the soil as furnishing, in its 
decay, a necessary supply of carbonic acid to the plant in the 
process of germination, though of no use after the plant gets 
above ground ; and he supposes that the manures of animals 
i'ed upon the product of the land return to the land those 
mineral elements which they took from it, and which are indis- 
pensable to their perfect formation. This may be so ; and in 
this view he does not deny the value of vegetable mould, or 
humus. But certainly there was nothing improbable in the 
supposition that plants might have found some portion of their 
food in those decayed substances which once constituted a part 
of the substance of their predecessors. Indeed, I see as yet no 
sufficient grounds to conclude that their office in supplying 
carbon to the growing plant ceases as soon as the plant is above 
ground, and able, as he supposes, to gain its own snpplies for 
itself from the atmosphere. It is quite certain that the growth 
of a forest would be checked, and the amount of humus in the 
soil be diminished, if all the decayed leaves and limbs, which 
fall from the trees, were constantly removed ; and it is as certain 
that the continual cultivation of land, without supplies of manure, 
exhausts its vegetable mould ; and that the application of vege- 
table manures to crops in a growing state is often as efficacious 
as when applied, or ploughed in, with the seed. 



iiO EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



LXXIII. — PECULIARITIES OF SOIL. 

There are some characteristics of different soils which seem 
to be generally admitted by practical men, but not very well 
defined. Thus some soils are deemed much better than others 
for the production of beef, others for that of butter, others for 
that of cheese ; and I found farmers, in some of the dairy districts, 
going so far as to assert that cheese could not be made on some 
soils, or rather, as I inferred from their remarks, could not be 
made to so much advantage as on others. But this, it seemed to 
me, could only be an indirect inference. That these products, 
both in quality and quantity, depend much upon the nature of 
the plants upon which the animals are fed, is an obvious fact ; 
and that some soils may be more favorable than others to the 
production of such kinds of plants as are particularly suited to 
particular uses or objects, I could easily understand ; but any 
other connection of the products with the nature of the soil 
seemed to me far from being established. To speak, therefore, 
of a cheesy soil, as I heard in some dairy districts, seemed to 
me of questionable propriety, as, under an intelligent agriculture, 
I could hardly doubt that a different species of herbage might be 
cultivated upon the same soil which now produced that which 
was unfavorable. 

I have given these brief notices of the general character of 
soils in England, of which the counterparts may be found in the 
United States. I have given them in terms which will, I think, 
be understood by the commonest farmer. I could without any 
difficulty have borrowed learning enough for the occasion, and 
have talked philosophically in the case ; but in all I have read on 
the subject, I have as yet discovered no practical advantage to the 
general mass of readers, from so viewing it, beyond what is 
secured by more simple statements. The importance of the 
nature of the soil to the husbandman, who spends his labor upon 
it, is very great. Some of the mineral ingredients, which are 
found in the soil, are indispensable to vegetation. Those which 
are found in the plants can only be received from the soil ; but 
it is a singular fact that, in case of a deficiency, one may some- 
times be substituted for another. "Potash is not the only sub- 



APPLICATION OF CHEMISTRY TO AGRICULTURE. 417 

Stance necessary for the existence of most plants ; indeed, it has 
been already shown that the potash may be replaced, in many 
cases, by soda, magnesia, or lime." * 



LXXIV. — APPLICATION OF CHEMISTRY TO AGRI- 
CULTURE. 

It must not be inferred, from any remark which has fallen from 
me, that I overlook the value of chemical science and inquiry in 
respect to agriculture. An inference of that nature would do me 
a great injustice. Our obligations in this matter are already very 
great, and more and wider triumphs are to be looked for. But two 
or three things, in this case, appear to me deserving of considera- 
tion, and likely to moderate an excessive confidence. The first 
is, that vegetation, and consequently cultivation, in the most scien- 
tific sense of the term, is not so simple a matter as some persons 
would have us imagine. How, for example, particular plants from 
the same soil are capable of extracting entirely different sub- 
stances, according to their own peculiar and individual charac- 
ters, each one preserving its own identity in form, taste, odor, 
color, fruit, and use, is not yet explained. The explanation is not 
even approached. In the second place, it seems assuming quite 
too much to suppose that all the processes of vegetation are to be 
resolved into mere chemical processes — understanding by chem- 
ical processes those laws or operations of which chemistry has 
attained a knowledge. The remarks which I have just made 
seem to demonstrate this. In the next place, the knowledge 
which chemistry has already furnished, either of the nature of 
soils or manures, or of the phenomena of vegetation, has not as 
yet been of so practical a character as is to be hoped for ; and it 
would seem extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to meet on 
any extended scale the diversities of soil which it has illustrated. 
The newly-invented manure, to which I have above referred,, 
should it be found to equal what it seems to promise, may 
fully meet this objection, and thus effect an important stride 
in agricultural improvement. 

* Liebisr. 



418 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



LXXV. — THEORY OF AGRICULTURE. 

The present theory of agricuhure assumes that plants consist 
of two species of matter — vegetable and mineral ; that the former 
is derived wholly from water and the air, and the latter from the 
soil. The plant is not perfected without the conjoint aid of 
both. The former consists of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and 
nitrogen ; and the latter of at least eight diiferent kinds of mineral 
substances. The latter are found in the ashes of plants, and are 
indestructible. They consist usually of four acids and four 
alkalies; — silicic acid, phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid, and mu- 
riatic acid ; and, of the alkalies, potash, soda, lime, and magnesia. 
Other mineral substances are found ; but these which 1 have 
enumerated are the principal. Boussingault thus designates 
them : " The residue left by the combustion is commonly com- 
posed of salts ; alkaline chlorides, with bases of potash and soda ; 
earthy and metallic phosphates ; caustic or carbonated lime and 
magnesia ; silica ; and oxides of iron and of manganese. Several 
other substances are also met with there, but in quantities so 
small that they may be neglected."* 

The mineral substances found in the ashes of plants may be 
supplied by art ; yet Avhether to be applied to the land in a direct 
and simple, or in a combined or mixed form, and, if so, how com- 
bined and mixed, are points not as yet determined. It is certain 
that there is only one form in which they can be taken up by 
the plants, and that is, in as extreme a degree of solubility as 
they are capable of being reduced to. Whether they shall be so 
reduced before they are applied, — whether, for example, they shall 
be presented to the plants in a solid or a liquid form, or whether 
they shall be by any art prepared, or it shall be left to the vital 
operations of the plant to prepare them, — are points yet to be 
determined. These questions will naturally present themselves 
again when the subject of manures is considered. 

In respect to the organic parts of vegetables, — those which form 
their largest portion, and consisting of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, 
and nitrogen, — the two former are understood to be supplied by 
water, the carbon by the atmosphere, and the nitrogen, consti- 

* Boussingault, p. 54. 



THEORY OF AGRICULTURE. 419 

tilting the nutritious part of the vegetable, from ammonia, which 
is itself a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, and supplied 
partially by rain, by the decay or putrefaction of animal matter, 
and in the excrements of animals. In the escape of ammonia 
from our dung heaps, it is supposed a great portion of their most 
valuable material passes off; and attempts have been made to fix 
this volatile substance, so as to secure it for the service of the 
plants, to be taken up by them as required. For this purpose, 
gypsum has been strongly recommended to be sprinkled in 
stables, and to be spread upon manure heaps. It is quite doubtful 
whether its effect has met the sanguine expectations which were 
formed of it. In the report given by Professor Henslow, which 
he has been kind enough to send me, of fifteen attempts to fix 
ammonia by the application of gypsum to dung, the result seems 
to leave the question wholly undetermined. His conclusions 
from these experiments are given in this result: "It will be 
seen that, with turnips, the effect has been uniformly in favor of 
gypsumed dung. With the straw of wheat, the result is twice 
in favor of the gypsumed dung, once against it, and in one case 
there is no difference. In respect to the wheat itself, it is six 
times in favor of the gypsumed dung, and six times against it. 
The practical inference to be deduced from this part of the 
inquiry favors the idea of using gypsumed dung for a turnip 
crop, but shows that it produces no better effect than ungyp- 
sumed dung upon a wheat crop." Such results certainly lead 
to no very strong conclusions. But the beneficial effects of 
covering manure heaps with mould, in order, in the first place, to 
prevent the escape of the volatile parts of the manure, and, in 
the next place, to absorb the gases, — so that the soil used for a 
covering becomes itself a valuable manure, — are points long agO' 
determined by the practice of many enlightened farmei^. 

Whatever may be the success or the ill success of dealing 
with the mineral qualities of the soil, or with those subtile gase& 
of which vegetables are composed, there are processes of a prac- 
tical nature to be applied, the propriety and utility of which are 
established. The practice of agriculture is still very much in 
advance of the theory of agriculture. I do not undervalue 
scientific agriculture. Science may do as much for agriculture 
as for any other department of business, or art, or health, or 
comfort, or enjoyment. In no department is success more 



420 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

desirable, or would it prove more extensively beneficial. The 
human mind finds the greatest of all delights in the acquisition 
of knowledge, and is impelled by an instinctive impulse " to 
search into the causes of things." A man, if familiar with the 
place and route, may find his way, if the lamps were not lighted, 
even of a dark night, in the labyrinthine streets of London ; but 
he must proceed slowly and doubtingly, and may tumble into 
an open sewer, or run against a post, or encounter other obstruc- 
tions more yieldhig than the post, yet twice as dangerous. But 
since science has kindled the beautiful and far-reaching silver 
flame of gas, and converted night into day, he walks in security 
and confidence ; he escapes, if he has wisdom so to choose, 
all perilous obstructions ; and he reaches his destination by the 
most direct, the most expeditious, and a certain route. 



LXXVI. — ACTUAL IMPROVEMENTS 

The soil must be the great object of the farmer's attention ; 
and here he may accomplish much. I mean much relatively, 
and with a due consideration of the limitations by which human 
power is always hemmed in. Light and heat, sunshine and 
rain, wind and frost, and many other influences most important 
to vegetation, of which as yet the human imagination has not, in 
all probability, taken cognizance or conceived, are wholly beyond 
his control or dictate. Arrogant and presumptuous as he is, the 
earth co.iild not contain him, if he were not chained down by 
the fact of his absolute dependence. There is a beautiful moral 
in the mythological fable of Jove's having given the reins to 
Phaeton, and the disastrous consequences which followed. But 
the ameliorations which an improved agriculture may effect are 
great, and sufficiently encouraging to the loftiest self-esteem. 
A wet soil may be drained ; a dry soil may be irrigated. A 
barren soil may be enriched ; a rich soil may be made more 
fertile and productive. A thin soil may be deepened ; a heavy 
soil may be made lighter ; a loose soil may be made more com- 
pact. A bleak soil may be sheltered ; and an unfavorable aspect 



PLOUGHING. 



421 



may be alleviated. Waste lands may be converted into fertile 
fields, and a growth of nauseous or unnutritious weeds sup- 
planted by bending sheaves of golden grain. Rivers may be 
diverted from their tortuous courses, now rendering vast tracts 
of land inaccessible, and made to flow in straight lines, leaving 
their recovered banks open to the plough ; and immense extents 
of the richest alluvial lands may be rescued from the sea — the 
feeble arm of human art and industry drive back the spoiler, and 
stay even his proudest waves. All these noble triumphs English 
agriculture has achieved ; and I shall take pains to lay them 
before my readers. What I propose to do then further, in this 
number, is, to detail their various imjn-ovements, and then to 
speak of the adaptation of particular soils to those purposes for 
which experience has shown them best fitted. 



LXXVII. — PLOUGHING. 

The first and most general operation, to which the soil is sub- 
jected, is ploughing. Man must have been early taught that, in 
order to render the earth productive, it must be tilled ; and it 
would be extremely curious, if the materials of such history 
were attainable, to trace the progress of improvement from the 
first instrument employed to stir the earth to the present beautiful 
and uigenious implement, by which acres, and miles of acres, are 
at pleasure inverted. It would be interesting to know how the 
North American Indians cultivated their corn (maize) when the 
country was discovered ; tradition has not preserved the traces 
of the method which they adopted. Their implements must 
have been few, and of the most simple description. The smooth 
stones, some of which I have myself found in places known as 
their favorite haunts, of a wedge shape, may have been used for 
digging the ground for the deposit of the seed, and perhaps for 
keeping the soil loose round the plants : near the sea-shore a 
clam-shell may have answered the same purpose. Of weeds, 
probably they had few to contend with, as the land was new and 
not surcharged with manure, of which perhaps they did not know 
36 



422 



ELROl'KA.N AGlllCLLTLKE. 



tho use, since, within the memory of persons now living, farmert; 
in the vicinity of Albany were accustomed to cart the manure 
from their barns on to the Hudson when frozen, and iu the 
neighborhood of Montreal on to the St. Lawrence, that, at the 
breaking of the ice in the spring, it might be carried away by the 
stream. Even much more recently, in some parts of the country, 
farmers, when they have found tlie piles of manure round their 
barns accumulated to an inconvenient size, have preferred to 
desert them, and build other barns, rather than be at the trouble 
and expense of removing these heaps. One is often amused at 
hearing people boast of " the wisdom of our ancestors ; " and, to 
be consistent, we should expect to see such persons adjusting the 
equilibrium of a bag of grain upon the horse's back by putting 
the corn in one end and a stone in the other. 

When I come to treat of the implements of husbandry, I shall 
describe an English plough ; at present I have to deal only with 
the operation itself. 

I think I may say that, in England and Scotland, the art of 
ploughing has reached perfection, and that it is unrivalled and 
unsurpassable. This at least is my opinion, which must be taken 
at what it is worth. I cannot conceive how it can be improved ; 
and this not in rare instances, and at ploughing matches, but I 
may say universally. In some cases, the work has been done 
better than in others ; but I have not seen an example of bad 
ploughing in the country; I have not seen one which, in the 
United States, would not be pronounced superior. 



LXXVIII. — THE ENGLISH CHARACTER — A DIGRESSION. 

It may be thought a little out of the way, but I will take this 
occasion to say, that the English know what right lines are. It 
is but just to say of them that of which I am convinced, after a 
familiar and close observation, — that they are an upright people ; 
that they have, with as few exceptions as are ordinarily to be 
expected in a commercial community, none of that slyness 
which some men chuckle over as a commendable quality, but 



THE PERFECTION OF PLOUGHING. 423 

which, though it may mount a fine beaver and wear the best 
Saxony broadcloth, is only a soft name for villany ; that their 
habits, like their ploughing, are direct and straight-forward, and 
are opposed to all balks and all tortuous windings. I thank 
God that the blood of such a people flows in my veins ; for I 
look upon honesty as the true nobility of man, and the only aris- 
tocracy to which my heart burns to pay always its spontaneous 
and unclaimed homage. "An honest man is the noblest work of 
God ; " a passage, of which a facetious divine, a man as true as 
he was witty, once said, "If it were not in the Scriptures, it 
ouffht to be." 



LXXIX. — THE PERFECTION OF PLOUGHING. 

The perfection of any art consists in its accomplishment of its 
particular object in the best manner, and by the simplest means. 
The perfection of ploughing consists in its performing its work 
exactly as you wish or require to have it done. You wish 
the surface soil of your field completely inverted. You wish 
this to be done at a particular depth, and the furrow-slice to be 
cut in perfectly direct lines. You desire it to be of a certain 
width and certain thickness, and the same in every part of the 
field. You require that it should be raised without breaking, and 
either laid completely flat upon its back, or made to recline upon 
its neighbor at a particular angle of inclination ; and you wish it 
so done that, if it be greensward, every portion of the herbage 
shall be completely shut in, and not a spire shall dare show its 
head between the furrows, any more than a straggling French- 
man on the field after the battle of Waterloo. And you want 
this performed at the rate of about an acre a day of eight hours" 
work, with your team moving at the rate of two miles or two 
miles and a quarter per hour, so that they may work comfortably 
every day in the week. You desire your ploughman to follow 
his team, and execute his part with entire attention to what he is 
about, without perturbation, without sweating, without fretting, 
and especially without swearing, which some men whom I have 
known, both at ploughing matches and in their own fields, have 



424 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

deemed indispensable to the proper performance of their worii ; 
in which matter I beg leave to say I always entirely differed from 
them in opinion, having never yet discovered any reason 
why men, who assume to belong to the order of rational animals, 
should, by their passion and the indecency and profaneness of 
their language, degrade themselves below the brute animals 
which they undertake to govern. Now, in all the particulars 
which I have pointed out, the ploughing here will be done exactly 
according to a prescribed form. I said, in my first report, that 
the ploughed land resembled a ruffle just come from under the 
crimping iron. The representation is perfect. 



LXXX. — PLOUGHING MATCH AT SAFFRON WALDEN. 

I attended, among several others, a ploughing match at Saffron 
Walden, where there were at least ten competitors, with lots of 
an eighth of an acre ; and, as well as I can remember, the 
furrow-slices were to be seven inches in width and five inches 
in depth. It was not a match against time, although the work 
was required to be completed within a certain time. I do not 
misstate when I say that I do not believe there was the variation 
of an inch, in the whole field, in the width or depth of the 
furrow, or a single crooked line, or even one solitary balk. 
The fields or lands were struck out before beginning. Two 
horses composed a team, and the ploughman was his own driver. 
Some boys under eighteen were allowed to enter as competitors 
for boys' premiums. I went over the field in an ecstasy of 
admiration at its uniformity, neatness, exactness, and beauty. 

There were some peculiar regulations adopted on this occasion, 
to which I may properly refer. Ploughmen who had obtained a 
first-prize premium on any former occasion, for ploughing, were 
disqualified, by the rules of the society, from entering into the 
general competition. But, with a view " of giving such merito- 
rious ploughmen another opportunity of showing that their skill 
and energies remain unimpaired," a special competition was 
offered to them, and seven prizes were proposed — the first 



PLOUGHIx\G MATCH AT SAFFRON WALDEN. 425 

iiraouuting, iu money and clothing, to £8 10s., or about $43, the 
lowest to £2 10s., or more than ^12, and the unsuccessful com- 
petitors, to the number of seven, were to receive £1 each. 
This was jmtting them through a line sieve, so as to come at 
the best quality. A premium of five guineas was likewise 
offered to the farmer who had employed the greatest number 
of ploughboys on his occu])ation, in proportion to acreage, for 
the preceding year, provided one of the boys in his employ 
should have obtained a prize for ploughing at the Annual Meet- 
ing. Such a premium as this seemed well suited to induce the 
farmers to give particular attention to the improvement of the 
lads in their service. Two circumstances contribute strongly to 
the perfecting of this most essential art. The first is, that boys 
are trained to it as early as they can possibly be employed with 
safety. The second is, the division of labor which generally 
prevails, so that individuals devote themselves, to a degree 
exclusively, to one particidar object ; a ploughman is constantly 
employed at the plough, and a herdsman in the pastures, or stalls. 

There are two points, which have seemed to me always par- 
ticularly to test the skill of a ploughman. The one is the mode 
in which he lays out his land, and strikes the first furrow ; and 
the second, that in which he finishes the last furrow. In the 
case to which I have referred, the last land remained, at the close, 
a single unbroken strip of equal width, from one end of the field 
to the other, lying like a stretched-out ribbon, which, as the 
ploughman came down the course, he turned without breaking, 
and with perfect precision, from one end to the other. In this 
instance, the horses seemed almost as well trained as the driver, 
and inspired with an equal emulation. The finishing of the 
ends of the lands is always a work of great care ; they are cross- 
ploughed, and the whole afiair is completed with an equal neat- 
ness throughout. 

I have seen very good ploughing in the United States, and 
perhaps in no department of agriculture has greater improvement 
taken place than in ploughing, and in the construction of 
ploughs. Formerly, nothing could be more slovenly executed. 
A straight line was not to be seen. The land was not half 
turned over. The furrows were of such depth or thickness as 
they might chance to be ; and the plough itself, when in action, 
resembled very much a live animal, with a sort of grasshopper 
36* 



426 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

motion, which one man at the stilts, and often two men riding 
upon the beam, were struggling to keep down, and, like police 
officers, to prevent its escape. A man was always required, like- 
wise, with a hoe, to assist in turning the furrow-slice at the end 
of the share, or in the discouraging duty of raising again, and 
turning over by main force, those furrow-slices which, notwith- 
standing they had been raised by the plough, like a reluctant 
boy pulled out of bed in the morning, with his eyes half open, 
insist upon getting back again as soon as the master's back is 
turned. 1 remember many a thump on the breast from the 
handles of the plough, and many a sudden jerk, which has 
thrown me upon the furrow, when I have been riding on the 
beam, and many a splitting of a beam, and many a breaking of 
a share ; and have looked back with dismay upon a long furrow- 
slice obstinately turning back into the furrow, after I had sup- 
posed it securely laid over. Somewhat of this experience may 
have been necessary, to enable me to estimate properly the excel- 
lence of English ploughing, when the implement seemed to 
move through the ground with as much quietness, directness, ease, 
— I may almost add grace, — as a boat through the water, with 
its sails spread to a favoring breeze, and an accomplished steers- 
man at the helm. Some allowance is to be made for the con- 
dition of our fields, compared with the English fields. Here 
there are no stumps of trees, and no stones, to impede or derange 
the plough. With us, alas ! in many cases, the stumps and stones 
remain in resolute opposition, to dispute our entrance, and, like 
bad tenants, can be dispossessed only by main force. 

I know that some may ask. What is the use of doing things 
with so much care ? I answer, in particular, that, the field being 
more thoroughly worked, the advantages to the crops, both in the 
suppression of weeds and in furnishing a more favorable bed for 
the extension of the roots of the plants, and its after cultivation 
and management,' are quite sufficient to recommend it. But I 
answer, in general, that the labor in the end is less, and more easy, 
in doing things well and regularly than in half doing them, and 
that in a slovenly manner ; and that habits of order, neatness, 
and regularity, in one branch of labor, lead to the same habits in 
other branches, and are of eminent advantage ; and, according 
to an excellent proverb, a thing which is well done is twice 
done. 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 427 



LXXXI. — GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 

The depth of ploughing, the width of the furrow-sHce, the 
number of ploughings which should be given to land, and the 
season at which it should be executed, depend on such a variety 
of circumstances, that it would be difficult to prescribe any uni- 
versal rules. 

The objects of ploughing are, to loosen the soil, and to render 
it permeable to the roots of plants, that they may extend them- 
selves for nourishment and support ; to make it accessible to the 
air and rain, from which, according to modern theories, it gathers 
both oxygen and ammonia, for the food of plants ; and, lastly, to 
give an opportunity of incorporating manures with the soil, for 
their support and growth. It has another object, of course, 
where greensward is turned over, which is, to bury the herbage 
then on the ground, and substitute other plants. 

The depth of ploughing varies in different soils, and for dif- 
ferent purposes. The average depth may be considered as fiv^e 
inches, but no direction on this subject will be found universally 
applicable. Three of the most eminent practical farmers with 
whom I am acquainted here plough not more than three inches ; 
but the surface mould, in these cases, is very thin, and the under- 
stratum is a cold, clammy chalk. One farmer, whose cultivation 
ic successful, and who cultivates '• a light, poor, thin, moory 
soil, with a subsoil of either blue or white clay, peat, or white 
gravel," carefully avoids breaking up the cold subsoil, and cuts 
up the sward with a breast-plough, which is a kind of paring 
spade ; and, after burning the turf, and spreading the ashes with 
a due application of artificial manure, consisting of equal quan- 
tities of lime, wood and turf ashes, at the rate of sixty bushels 
to the acre, and sowing turnip-seed, cultivates between the rows 
with a single horse-plough, which cannot, of course, take a deep 
furrow. The second year of the course, when he sows wheat, 
he ploughs it very lightly with a horse, after having first breast- 
ploughed it, so as thoroughly to cover in the manure which the 
sheep who have been folded upon the land have left upon it. 
The third year it is breast-ploughed, sown in turnips, and culti- 
vated between the rows with a horse, as before described. The 



428 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

fourth year it is simply breast-ploughed for barley. The fifth 
and sixth years it is in grass. Thus, in the whole course of a 
six years' rotation, this land is only ploughed four times by men, 
and three times with a single horse-plough. Another farmer in 
the same neighborhood says that, upon this description of land, 
any other than the breast-plough would not leave the ground suf- 
ficiently firm for wheat. Mr. Pusey, M. P., whose excellently 
managed farm I have had the pleasure of repeatedly going over, 
in remarking on the above accounts, says, " Occupying similar 
land, I may add that I never plough it deeply, but I repent of 
so doing ; and am falling more and more each year, by the 
advice of neighboring farmers, into the use of the breast-plough, 
instead of the horse-plough. This manual labor is quite as 
cheap, for a good workman can pare such hollow tender land at 
4 s., or even at 3 s. per acre. It is possible that the drought of 
our climate in Gloucestershire and Berkshire may be one cause 
of the success of this practice in those counties, and that the 
same soil, if transferred to Westmoreland, would require deeper 
working. Therefore, without recommending shallow cultiva- 
tion in districts where deep ploughing has been hitherto prac- 
tised, I would merely warn beginners against plunging recklessly 
into the subsoil." These examples are certainly well worth 
considering. I do not understand that these practices at all mil- 
itate against the doctrine of the advantages to be obtained from 
subsoiling. In cases where subsoiling and thorough draining 
are not applied, this shallow ploughing may be preferred, as the 
mingling of the cold and inert subsoil with so thin a surface of 
v^egetable mould would doubtless be prejudicial, at least for a 
len.gth of time ; but the improvement of such land by a system 
of tliorough draining and subsoiling is another matter, to which 
I shall refer in its proper place. There are considerable tracts 
of this moorish land — that is, a thin, black, coarse peat, not half 
decomposed, resting upon a cold and hard pan of gravel or 
clay, or what some persons have mistaken for marl, in Massachu- 
setts, and other parts of the country, the improvement of which, 
so far as my experience has gone, has been almost hopeless. 

While upon this subject, I may as well give the results of the 
management of the first farmer referred to, and therefore subjoin 
them. " By this mode of management, an economical system 
is followed up through the whole course, by being nearly all 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 429 

performed by manual labor, by which means a remuneratmg 
croj) will be produced, and the land always kept firm, which is 
the only difficulty to be overcome on this description of soil. 
The farm, when first taken by me, was wet ; as much out of con- 
dition, and as light and weak, as it well could be — parts of it 
being merely held together by the roots of grass and weeds, 
natural to moory land, but which must be very prejudicial to the 
production of those crops that are to benefit the farmer. I com- 
menced by draining, and then pursued the foregoing system of 
cultivation, by which my most sanguine expectations have been 
realized, though I was told that the land would be too light and 
too poor to plant wheat after turnips. I have never found any 
ill effects from paring and burning, experience having taught me 
that it produces a manure particularly beneficial to the growth 
of turnips; thereby enabling me to firm the land by sheep."* 
This farmer speaks of performing a great portion of his work 
with manual labor. I think some part of it might rather be 
called pedestrian than manual ; for, if he ploughs his land by 
men, he treads it out by women. He says, " Before the horse- 
roll can be used, I send women to tread it, and, if occasion re- 
quire, tread it again ; after which, I have it twice hoed. I have 
found more benefit from this mode of pressing than any other, 
being done at a time when wheat, on this description of soil, re- 
quires assistance." f 

I have found other farmers, who, with their wheat crops on 
light, chalky soils, ploughed in a very shallow manner, and then 
were accustomed to tread their land with sheep, in order to give 
the wheat plant a firmer footing; as, otherwise, in a very light 
soil, it might be thrown out by the wind. These cases, liow- 

* Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi. p. 1. 

f This is a use to which women have not as yet been put in our "half-civil- 
ized " country. I dare say, however, many persons think that it is very M'ell to 
make such clever animals serviceable ; their " keep," agriculturally speaking, is 
somewhat expensive ; and, as they have their share in the pleasure of consuming, 
they may as well take their part in the labor of producing. Whatever any persons 
may think, however, I will say no such uncivil thing ; but, since the celebrated 
dansciise, Fanny Ellsler, returned from the United States, after a two years' tour, 
witli a gain of twenty thousand pounds, or one hundred thousand dollars, it cannot 
be denied that the Americans are quite willing to pay for the use of women's 
feet — in a way, we admit, more elegant, tasteful, and classical, but certainly not 
more respectable, and not half as useful, as that of treading the wheat-ground. 



430 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ever, must all be deemed exceptions ; and the general rule in 
England, where the soil admits of it, and manure is abundant, is 
that of rather deep ploughing. Five or six inches is the average 
depth ; in many cases, much more than this. The loam, or 
vegetable mould, is, without question, the great source or me- 
dium of nourishment to the plants. Be it more or less deep, it 
is always safe to go to the bottom of this, and, by gradually 
loosening a portion of the subsoil, or lower stratum, and incor 
porating it with the mould, and rendering it accessible to the 
air and light, it acquires the nature of mould, and the whole 
arable surface is enriched. The deeper the soil, the more 
deeply the roots are permitted to descend, and the more widely 
they are enabled to spread themselves, — unless they penetrate a 
substratum unhealthy from wet or the too great prevalence of 
some unfavorable mineral substance, — so much the more luxu- 
riant and productive is the vegetation likely to prove. The 
depth to which the roots of plants will go down in search of 
food or moisture, where the soil is in a condition to be pene- 
trated by them, is much greater than a superficial observation 
would induce us to suppose. It is confidently asserted that the 
roots of some plants — such, for example, as lucern and sainfoin — 
go to a depth of fifteen, twenty, and even thirty feet. This 
seems scarcely credible. Red clover is known to extend its 
roots to the depth of three feet, and wheat to the depth of two 
or three feet, where the condition of the soil is favorable to their 
extension. Von Thaer, the distinguished agriculturist, says, 
" he has pulled carrots two and a half feet long, the tap-root of 
which was probably another foot in length." The tap-root of a 
Swedish turnip has been known to extend thirty-nine inches ; 
the roots of Indian corn full six feet. These statements may 
appear extraordinary ; but, by the free and loose texture of the 
soil, it is obvious a good husbandman will give every opportunity 
for the roots and their extremely fine fibres to extend themselves 
as far as their instincts may prompt them. 

Next to the depth of ploughing, the width of the furrow-slice 
is to be considered. This, of course, depends mainly upon the 
construction of the plough. A plough with a wide sole or base, 
in the hands of a skilful ploughman, may be made to cut a nar- 
row fuiTow-slice ; but a narrow-soled plough cannot be made to 
cut a wide furrow-slice, though it may sometimes appear to do 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 431 

SO by leaving a part of the ground unturned, which t'he furrow- 
slice is made to cover. Where, as in old ploughed land, the 
object is solely to leave the ground loose and light, it is advisa- 
ble to take a very narrow furrow. Where, otherwise, the object 
is to move greensward or stubble ground, and to. cover in the 
vegetable matter, such a width of furrow must be taken as will 
cause the slice, as it is raised by tlie share, to turn over easily. 
This width may generally be reckoned at nearly twice the 
depth, though less will answer ; but a furrow-slice of equal sides 
would not turn, but stand on end. The manner in which the 
furrow-slice will be turned depends somewhat upon the form of 
the mould-board, but more, in general, upon the skill of the 
ploughman. Two modes are adopted ; the one to lay the fur- 
row-slice entirely flat, shutting its edge exactly in by the edge of 
its neighbor ; the other, to lay it at an inclination of 45 degrees, 
lapping the one upon the other. The former mode, where land 
is to be sown with grass-seed, and, as the phrase is with us, laid 
down, is, undoubtedly, to be preferred. Perhaps, in any case 
where a grain crop is to be cultivated, it should be preferred, 
as its beneficial effects have been well tested in the United 
States. In the United States, however, from a higher temper- 
ature, the vegetable matter thus pressed down may be expected 
sooner to be decomposed, and thus sooner furnish a pabulum for 
the growing plants, than in a climate where, in a much lower 
and more even temperature, the decomposition cannot be ex- 
pected to take place so rapidly. In other cases, and for vege- 
table crops, — I mean in contradistinction to grain crops, — a 
different mode of ploughing, that is, laying the furrow-slices one 
upon the other at an angle of 45 degrees, or half turned over, 
would leave the ground more loose, as well as expose a larger 
surface of the inverted soil to be enriched by the air. In this 
way, by harrowing and rolling, the vegetable matter will be 
completely buried. This mode of ploughing is evidently pre- 
ferred throughout the country, as I have seldom seen the sward 
completely inverted and laid flat, though I know the practice 
])revails in some coimties. To avoid having any of the grass 
protrude itself between the furrow-slices, they have here, what 
I have never seen in the United States, a skim-colter, that is, 
a miniature ploughshare, or blade, placed under the beam, and 



432 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

SO adjusted as to cut an edge from the furrow-slice as it is turned 
over ; this piece, so cut off, at once dropping down, and being 
buried under the furrow-slice as it goes over. The consequence 
is, that there is no grass on the edge of the furrow-slice to show 
itself, and great neatness is therefore given to the whole work. 
There is another mode of ploughing, which I have sometimes 
seen practised, by which the furrow-slice is not merely lifted, 
but may be said to be rolled over, or twisted in a sort of bag- 
fashion. This seemed to me to be principally owing to the 
concave form of the mould-board, for no workman could have 
done it with a straight or convex form of mould-board. It 
would seem to render the soil more friable and loose ; but every 
departure from a straight line, or wedge form of the mould-board, 
evidently much increases the draught. The skim-colter, to 
which I have referred above, somewhat increases the draught, 
but in a very small degree. 

The great object of the English farmers, in ploughing, seems to 
be the thorough pulverization of the soil ; and they are therefore 
very seldom satisfied with one ploughing, but their land is re- 
peatedly ploughed, scarified, and harrowed. They cross-plough 
their land, and think it desirable to reduce the sward land to a 
fine tilth, tearing it to pieces, and bringing all the grass, and roots, 
and rubbish, to the surface, that they may be raked up and burned, 
or carried to the manure heaps. The propriety of this practice 
is, in my mind, quite questionable. It would seem to me much 
better to turn the sward completely over, and then cultivate on 
the top of it, without disturbing the grass surface, leaving that, 
when thus turned over, to a gradual decomposition, that it might 
in this way supply food to the growing crop, whereas the ab- 
straction of so much vegetable matter must greatly diminish the 
resources of the soil. Where, however, the field is infested with 
twitch grass, (lj-iiicumrepe7is,) — in which, indeed, many of the 
fields in England abound to a most extraordinary extent, — there 
may be no getting rid of it but by actually loosening and tearing 
it out ; but where it is a mere clover ley, or an old grass pasture 
or meadow, the taking out and removing the vegetable matter 
seems to be a serious waste. Even the twitch might be managed 
where the crop is to be hoed, though, in grain crops, its presence 
is extremely prejudicial. 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 433 

Having thus described the general style of ploughing, as it pre- 
vails in England, I come to speak of particular processes which 
are occasionally practised. 

1. Lapping in Ploughing. — A field of greensward, or stub- 
ble, is often, in the autumn, only half ploughed ; that is, a furrow- 
slice is turned over directly upon an unploughed surface ; and 
then another furrow is turned upon another unploughed surface, 
until the whole field, being thus ploughed, presents a succession 
of open furrows and of lapped lands, and only half of it is in 
fact stirred. In the spring, these intermediate places are broken 
up by the process being directly reversed. Some advantage 
may come, in this case, from the decomposition or rotting of the 
vegetable matter placed between the two surfaces thus brought 
together, although this can hardly be expected to proceed at a 
rapid rate, if at all, during the winter season, and the furrows 
may serve as drains to carry off the water from the land ; but, ex- 
cepting the saving in time by half doing instead of wholly doing 
the work, I see no advantage in this process over the regular 
mode of ploughing the whole field at once. It is advised, hoAv- 
ever, in performing this operation, that the part of the sward 
which is laid over should be wider than that upon which it is 
laid, that, by its weight, it may be broken, and the whole ren- 
dered more friable.* 

2. Ribbing, or Raftering. — There is another mode of 
ploughing called ribbing, or raftering, difiering scarcely from 
the method just described, excepting that two furrow-slices are 
laid upon one. instead of one upon one. In this case, an open 
furrow and an alternate ridge present themselves over the whole 
field ; the furrows serve to keep the land from stagnant water, 
and the turned-up land is exposed to the ameliorating processes of 

* " When land has become very full of twitch, it is a good plan to half-plougli 
it — that is, turning over one furrow and then another opposite, to meet it. If tliis 
is done in November, it will check tlie growth of tlie twitch during the winter- 
The land, when ploughed in a contrary direction early in the spring, will lie in 
heaps, and thus become quite dry, when tlie twitch may easily be got out, and a 
good turnip fallow be made. Scufflers are now made, which will answer the pur- 
pose of stirring land that has been ploughed, and thus save the labor and ex- 
pense of a ploughing: Fiiilay .son's harrow is a most useful implement." — Hilt- 
yard^ s Pradkal Farmer, 4th edition, p. 3G. 

37 



434 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the air and the frost. The field, when done in the best possible 
manner, as it often is, presents a beautiful example of artistical 
skill. In the springing, preparatory to after cultivation, the whole 
is broken up and levelled, by reversing the operation. 1 am not 
able to see any decided advantage which this mode has over the 
regular ploughing of the whole field at once, except in the saving 
of time, and this saving is at the expense of only two thirds of 
the land being ploughed. 

3. Laying in Beds, or Stitches. — There is another mode of 
ploughing, or rather of laying the land, which prevails in Eng- 
land and Scotland to a great extent, and is nearly universal upon 
low and wet soils ; that is, the practice of laying the land in 
beds, or what are here commonly called stetches. In this case, 
a ridge is formed in the centre, by laying two furrows back to 
back, and then ploughing up to them on each side, until a suf- 
ficient land is gone over to form a bed. These beds vary much 
in width, from five to eighteen and thirty-six feet. In some 
cases, under a system of ploughing which is called two in and 
two out, four beds are formed into one bed, of perhaps sixty feet 
in breadth. In Essex county, on the lowlands, they are only 
five feet in width. An open furrow is of course left for the 
water to flow off", which runs down the sides of the beds. The 
object is to lay the land dry ; but it is obvious there is a loss of 
land in the furrows, and, while there is a constant accumulation 
of rich soil on the centre of the bed, the mould must gradually 
become thinner as you approach the furrow, and the furrow is 
always indicated by an absence of product, or the growth of 
coarse and worthless grasses. 

These ridges, in English cultivation, are seldom altered, but 
(though often, far from being bounded by a straight, are bounded 
by a winding or crooked furrow) remain the same as they have 
been doubtless for a century. Indeed, they are in many places 
regarded with a kind of superstition, as though the land would 
lose its fertility if they were broken in upon ; and some writers 
on English husbandry assert that water flows better in these 
winding gutters than it would in straight furrows, which is cer- 
tainly a new philosophy. Though, where they are not properly 
ploughed, there is liable to be a continual accumulation towards 
the centre, yet I cannot say that I have ever seen so great an 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 435 

increase of them as is described in Von Thaer's Agriculture, 
which has been recently translated into English, and published 
in two volumes in London. " In places," says this author, 
" where, as is frequently the case, there have been no ditches 
between the lands of different proprietors, or where these ditches 
have been filled up for the sake of gaining additional surface, all 
the ploughmen have avoided throwing the earth to the outside, 
from fear that, if they did so, their neighbor might carry off that 
which was thus placed within his reach. In this 7Jia?mc}-, ridges 
of cotisiderable breadths have become elevated in the middle to such 
a degree, that tico ?nen, ivalking in the parallel furrows which 
bound them, will not be able to see each other. ^^ * This seems 
to be a regular piece of Munchausen ; and if all book agricul- 
ture were of this description, one could hardly be surprised at 
some little incredulity and distaste on the part of common prac- 
tical farmers. 

The advantages of laying land in this form, in cases where 
land is wet and heavy, or where the rain does not pass off readily, 
are obvious. Where the ridges or beds, likewise, are made 
equal, and with care, the ridges and furrows furnish a conve- 
nient measurement of land in sowing, reaping, or harvesting. 
There is a considerable loss of land in the furrows, where the 
beds are, as in some cases, made very narrow, as for example when 
formed of ten furrow-slices, and two furrow-slices are taken for 
the drain, the amount of land taken for the drains will be equal 
to one sixth of the whole, or one acre in six — a very considerable 
loss, it must be admitted ; but then, in every system of ploughing, 
there must be open furrows left at the sides, if not in the centre, 
of the fields ; and where the beds are large, as described above, 
throwing, for example, four common beds of fifteen feet each, so 
as to form one of sixty feet, the loss by open furrows would be 
greatly reduced. In countries subject to much snow, and severe 
frosts, it is objected that, the snow being naturally blown from 
the elevated into the lower parts of the field, the ridge, or highest 
part of the bed, is more exposed to the alternations of freezing 
and thawing, and so the grain plants on the ridge are liable to be 



* Principles of Agriculture, by Von Thaer, vol. ii. p. 84, as translated from 
the French by those two most intelligent and industrious agricultural ■vmters, 
William Shaw and Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esquires. 



436 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

thrown out and destroyed. I do not know that this objection is 
entitled to much consideration. Where the furrows are made 
from east to west, instead of from north to south, — and the latter 
ought always to be the direction, — there will be a considerable 
difference in the temperature of the two sides of the ridge, as the 
difference in the effect produced by the sun's rays, when falling 
directly upon a surface inclined towards the sun, or upon one 
directly the reverse of this, must be considerable. It is urged, 
likewise, as an objection to these ridges, that the rain, as it falls, 
passes too rapidly into the furrows, and is carried off without 
gradually soaking into the land, as on a flat surface, and giving 
the whole its full advantage. These are some of the objections 
urged against this system of laying the land in ridges ; and, since 
the introduction of the system of subsoiling and thorough-drain- 
ing, Mr. Smith, the introducer of this immense and extraordinary 
improvement, and in general those persons who follow out his 
notions in other respects, disapprove altogether the plan of laying 
out the ground in ridges or beds, and leave an even and un- 
broken surface. In cross-ploughing fields laid in beds, there is 
likewise an inconvenience arising from the furrows ; and the 
same difficulty likewise applies to the harrowing of such fields, 
especially if it is attempted to be done across the furrows. Har- 
rows formed with a concave under-side, to adapt them to the 
shape of the bed, are sometimes used lengthwise with the ridge : 
but they are ill adapted to cross-harrowing these ridges, or to be 
used upon land with a fiat and even surface. 

The beauty which is given to the cultivation, where such 
ritlges prevail and are well formed over extensive fields, is cer- 
tainly some recommendation of them ; but this supposes them to 
be made evenly and with care. Upon as fair a view of the 
subject as I can take, I should recommend them, not for their 
beauty, but for their utility and convenience. But in this case, 
excepting where the land is very wet and low, I should insist 
upon a width certainly not less than forty feet ; and 1 should 
avoid by all means too much accumulation of earth in the centre 
of the ridge, which an expert ploughman is very capable of 
doing. 

4. Lazy-bed Cultivation. — There prevails in Ireland a mode 
of ridding land, different from what I have described, and called 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 



437 



— with what propriety I am unable to see — the lazy-bed system. 
It is done, in general, only in wet and low lands, though I have 
seen it upon other lands. In this case, the whole land may be either 
ploughed or dug over by the spade, before the formation of the 
beds, or it may be left in grass, and the process proceed in this 
way : Beds of four feet wide are marked out, and divided by a 
furrow-drain about one foot wide. The potato sets or seed are 
laid upon the ground or bed, at such distances as are deemed 
best, generally in lines across the bed, and the earth in the 
furrow is cut down to the hard pan, even a foot and a half in 
depth, by a spade, and taken out and thrown upon the seed 
which has been deposited on the bed, and the whole is carefully 
smoothed off with the shovel. The fresh earth thus taken from 
the furrow-drain brings no seeds of weeds with it, and the after 
cultivation is easy. The potatoes in the autumn being dug 
with a spade, the whole ground is pretty thoroughly forked, or 
dug over, and, when it is used the next year for a crop, — it may 
be of potatoes again, or of oats, — the furrow-drain is filled up, 
and one made in another place, or in the centre of that which 
was the bed, so that, in truth, the whole field becomes pretty 
thoroughly cultivated. 

A very intelligent farmer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting 
in Ireland, was kind enough to give me an account of his man- 
agement of some of his land on this plan, a system which he 
considers as extremely well adapted to a cold, wet soil, not yet 
carefully drained, or to a dry soil which may have become ex- 
hausted by constant cropping and shallow ploughing. 

" I lined out the ground to be tilled, in ridges four feet wide, 
and furrows two feet wide. I then dug out of the parts lined off 
for the furrows, and put on the ridges, all the active soil which 
could be taken up by the spade. The sets were then planted, and 
covered by the earth which had remained in the furrows, and 
which was for this purpose cleanly shovelled. By this mode I 
obtained a d?-}/ seed-bed in moist ground — a fresh, active soil in 
exhausted ground, and a depth of surface in light land. 

" In one instance, on a cold, retentive soil not drained, where 
there had been a very poor crop of potatoes the previous year, 
and the soil not stirred from the time the potatoes had been dug 
out until the oats were sown, a good crop of oats was obtained. 
In the other case, a second crop of oats was taken off the same 
37* 



438 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

field, the stubbles having been ploughed in October. This crop 
was much superior to the former. It produced fine grain, and 
was so luxuriant that the greater part of it was lodged previous 
to reaping on the 9th of August. Should the surface or active 
soil be very shallow, the breadth of the ridge may be narrowed, 
or the breadth of the fnrrow increased. The wide furrows allow 
of loosening the subsoil, either with crow-bars, picks, or spades, 
and 1 carefully reserve all stones which appear, for drains, where 
draining is necessary ; and where it is, I now drain wherever I 
find the stones at hand — sometimes before tilling. I make the 
drains at forty or sixty feet apart at first, and put in my inter- 
mediate drains in each succeeding year, as I obtain stones in 
loosening the subsoil. 

" I lay out my ridges for potatoes, the breadth as for oats, 
putting the sets in rows across the ridges, five sets in each row, 
and the rows varying from eighteen to twenty-two inches apart ; 
— thus saving seed, being enabled to keep the plants free from 
weeds, to dig out the potatoes at less cost without injury, and 
increasing the produce, over the old lazy-bed system, in the pro- 
portion of one sixth." 

The object of this farmer is to till his low land, in a way to 
avoid the evil of excessive wet, by this simple method, before 
he can go to the expense of completely furrow-draining. The 
method of managing land by complete drainage, which I shall 
presently describe, would undoubtedly be to be preferred, where 
there is a sufficiency of time and capital ; but in the mean time 
the other system may be adopted as a temporary substitute. 

This gentleman gave me, at the same time, an account of an 
experiment made as to the distance at which potatoes should be 
planted, which seems worth recording, and which I will insert 
liere, though not exactly in place. 

The potatoes were cultivated in the lazy-bed fashion described. 
Six ridges were laid out four feet wide, with two feet furrows ; 
an equal quantity of manure laid down for each. Two ridges 
were j)lanted, the cuttings being laid thick, without any regu- 
larity ; two ridges had tlie cuts placed in rows across the bed, 
fourteen inches apart, five sets in a row ; and two ridges, seven- 
teen inches asunder, five sets in each row. The manure was 
spread over the entire of the ridges tilled in the old lazy-bed 
v/ay, and immediately over the sets planted. The quantity of 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 439 

seed required by the first mode of planting was six and a half 
stone, or 91 pounds; by the second method, 77 pounds; and 
by the third method, 70 pounds. The quantity of ground, in 
each case, was seven square perches. The produce was as sub- 
joined : — 

In the first method, 1218 pounds. 

In rows at 14 inches, 1358 " 

In rows at 17 inches, 1442 " 

He adds that the advantage of the latter method is not only 
a considerable increase of produce by the acre, amounting to 
5152 pounds over the first method, but there is a decided advan- 
tage in every operation which takes place, from the planting to 
the digging. The ridges take less seed ; require less labor ; can 
be freed from weeds with greater ease and less danger to the 
tender stalk, and dug with greater facility, and without injury 
from the spade. Another advantage is, in those places where 
there is but a light surface, they may be " moulded up," or the 
dirt brought to the plants, with much benefit. 

I give this as an example of spade husbandry. As snch, it will 
have its value with many of my readers. It is not adapted to 
cultivation upon any extended scale ; but there are small pieces 
of low, wet land throughout the country, which the owners 
cannot afford at once to drain thoroughly, but from which, in 
this way, good crops may be obtained, and the land brought 
into a condition of productive improvement. The experiment, 
in regard to quantity of seed, is certainly worth considering. 
Potatoes are never cultivated m England or Ireland, as with us, 
in hills. I have known as large a production from a field culti- 
vated in hills three and a half feet apart each way, as in almost 
any other mode ; but the expense of gathering them is more than 
upon one planted in drills, so as to be easily turned out by the 
plough. A distinguished farmer in England has invented what 
he calls a hog's-head plough, for the purpose of turning out 
potatoes which are planted in drills, Avithout injuring them. It 
resembles a hog's snout attached to the front part of a j)longh, 
without a colter, by which the potatoes are raised and turned 
out of their bed. This may be said to be copying nature, for it 
is clearly the way that profound race of investigators, the swine, 
would turn out the crop, if they were sent into an undug potato 



440 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

field ; but it has no great advantages, in this matter, over a double 
mould-board plough. 

5. Correct Ploughing. — The proper and best mode of 
ploughing is so exactly and well described by a recent and 
eminent Scotch agricultural writer, that I think I cannot do 
better than to give it in full to my readers. 

" Whatever mode of ploughing the land is subjected to, you 
should take special care that it be ploughed for a wiuter furrow 
in the best manner. The furrow-slice should be of the requisite 
depth, whether of five inches on the oldest lea, or seven inches 
on the most friable ground ; and it should also be of the requisite 
breadth of nine inches in the former case, and of ten in the 
latter; but as ploughmen incline to hold a shallower furrow 
than it should be, to make the labor easier to themselves, there 
is less likelihood of their making a narrower furrow than it 
should be, a shallow and a broad furrow conferring both ease 
on themselves, and getting over the ground quickly. A proper 
furrow-slice in land not in grass, or, as it is termed, in red land, 
should never be less than nine inches in breadth and six inches 
in depth on the strongest soil, and ten inches in breadth and 
seven inches in depth on lighter soils. On grass land of strong 
soil, or on land of any texture that has lain long in grass, nine 
inches of breadth, and five inches of depth, is as large a furrow- 
slice as may possibly be obtained ; but on lighter soil, with com- 
paratively young grass, a furrow-slice of ten inches by six, and 
even seven, is easily turned over. At all seasons, but especially 
for a winter furrow, you should endeavor to establish for your- 
self a character for deep and correct ploughing." 

"Correct ploughing possesses these characteristics: The fur- 
row-slices should be quite straight, for a ploughman that cannot 
hold a straight furrow is unworthy of his charge. The furrow- 
slices should be quite parallel in length ; and this property shows 
that they have been turned over of a uniform thickness, for thick 
and thin slices, lying together, present irregularly horizontal lines. 
The furrow-slices should be of the same height, which shows 
that they have been cut of the same breadth ; for slices of dif- 
ferent breadths, laid together at whatever angle, present unequal 
vertical lines. The furrow-slices should present to the eye a 
similar form of crest and equal surface ; because, where one 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 441 

luiTow-slice exhibits a narrower surface than it should have, it 
has been covered with a broader shce than it should be ; and 
where it displays a broader surface than it should, it is so exposed 
by a narrower slice than it should be, lying upon it. The fur- 
row-slices should have their back and face parallel ; and to dis- 
cover this property requires ratlier minute examination after the 
land has been ploughed ; but it is easily ascertained at the time 
of ploughing. The ground, on being ploughed, should feel 
equally firm under the foot at all places; for slices in a more 
upright position than they should be not only feel hard and 
unsteady, but will allow the seed corn to fall down between 
them and become buried. Furrow-slices in too flat a state 
always yield considerably to the pressure of the foot ; and they 
are then too much drawn, and afford insufficient mould for the 
seed. Furrow-slices should lie over at the same angle ; and it 
is demonstrable that the largest extent of surface exposed to the 
action of the air is when they are laid over at an angle of 45°, 
thus presenting crests in the best possible position for the action 
of the harrows. Crowns of ridges, formed by the meeting of 
opposite furrow-slices, should neither be elevated nor depressed, 
in regard to the .rest of the ridge, although ploughmen often 
commit the error of raising the crowns too high into a crest — the 
fault being easily committed by not giving the feered " (that is, 
the first, or marking-out slices) "furrow-slices sufficient room to 
meet, and thereby pressing them upon one another. The furrow- 
brows should have slices uniform with the rest of the ridge ; but 
ploughmen are very apt to miscalculate the width of the slices 
near the sides of the ridges ; for if the specific number of furrow- 
slices into which the whole ridge should be ploughed are too 
narrow, the last slice of the furrow-brow will be too broad, and 
will therefore lie over too flat ; and should this too broad space 
be divided into two furrows, each slice will be too narrow, and 
stand too upright. When the furrow-brows are ill made, the 
mould-furrows cannot be proportionately ploughed out ; because, 
if the space between the furrow-brows is too wide, the mould- 
furrows must be made too deep, to fill up all the space, and vice 
versa. If the furrow-brow slices are laid too flat, the mould- 
furrows will be apt to throw too much earth upon their edges 
next the open furrow, and there make them too high. When 
the furrow-brows of adjoining ridges are not ploughed alike, one 



442 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

side of the open furrow will require a deeper mould-furrow thai; 
the other."* 

There is no more accuracy and exactness prescribed in these 
directions, in the execution of this first great operation of hus- 
bandry, than what is actually attained and practised both in 
England and Scotland. The Lothians, in the vicinity of Edin- 
burgh, — and which may indeed be considered as the garden of 
Scotland, — the counties of Northumberland, Lincoln, and Nor- 
folk, in England, exhibit this perfection of cultivation. It may be 
seen in many other places, but in these on a more extended scale 
than in others. But such excellence, however, is not attained 
without very great pains, and, with expert ploughmen, a long 
course of practice. I shall be asked, perhaps, what advantage 
comes from this exact mode of performing the work. It might 
be enough to answer, that, in every species of labor, and in every 
practical art, what is done should be well done, and perfection, 
how far soever he may fall short of it, should be every man's great 
aim. It might be enough to say, that the moral influences upon 
a man's own character, and life, of habits of exactness, order, 
care, and neatness, are always great, and of very serious value ; 
but I may confidently add, that the perfection with which land 
is tilled is of great importance to the crops, and directly con- 
ducive to their perfection and abundance. The man, too, Avho 
studies to plough and cultivate his lands in the best manner, will 
be anxious to have his implements of the best kind, and to keep 
his team in the best order and condition. Indeed, multiply as 
we will the excuses for slovenliness, irregularity, and careless- 
ness, there cannot be a doubt that habits of order, exactness, and 
carefulness, in all respects, are directly conducive to, nay, are the 
true foundations of, all profitable arrangement. I may add, like- 
wise, that where every thing is kept in order, and all work pro- 
ceeds by rule and system, though these rules may sometimes 
appear extreme or severe, affairs are managed at less expense of 
labor and time than in a more negligent and reckless mode. 

The great object of ploughing is to pulverize the soil, to open 
it to the admission of those great enrichers of the land, and those 
great instruments of vegetation, heat, light, air, and moisture ; to 
furnish a penetrable bed in which the roots of the plants may 

* Stephen's Book of the Farm, vol. i. p. 633. 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 443 

establish themselves, and stretch themselves out in search of 
food ; and, by bringing the stony portions of the soil under the 
influence of external agents, to ])roduce a chemical decomposi- 
tion, and supply of those mineral ingredients, a portion of which 
is indispensable to the healthy growth and productiveness of the 
plants which are cultivated. It is important, therefore, to reduce 
the soil to as fine a tilth as possible. It is important to do this, 
likewise, that the manures which are applied may be thoroughly 
intermixed with the soil. In gardens, and in small plats, this is 
done by the spade, which in fields is attempted by the plough ; 
the object in both cases being to render the soil loose, fine, and 
friable. The more care is exercised in the ploughing, the more 
certainly v/ill these ends be accomplished, 

6. Trench-Ploughing. — I come next to speak of \vhat is 
called trench-plouglmig. This term is applied to a deeper 
ploughing than usual, or to a double ploughing, where one 
plough follows directly in the furrow left by a preceding plough. 
In trenching land with the spade, which I have before described, 
the object is completely to invert the soil, laying the surface soil 
underneath, and covering it with that stratum of soil upon which 
it had previously rested. The object obviously is, to deepen the 
cultivatable soil, — if I may coin a word which will be very well 
understood, — and, by bringing the lower stratum to the surface, 
expose it to influences by which it may gradually become 
enriched. Soil taken from almost any depth, after lying upon 
the surface for a length of time, will ordinarily of itself acquire 
a productive power, and may be cultivated with success. I have 
known this to be the case with earth taken from the bottom of 
a deep well, which, after a length of time, became productive. 
There is always, in such cases, an accumulation or accession of 
extraneous matters, which come one hardly knows whence, 
how, or when. The surface of the coral reefs, of which the 
islands in the Pacific are examples, after being raised above the 
water, are gradually decomposed and enriched ; seeds of plants, 
floating in the air, or brought by birds, or cast ashore by the 
waves, gradually establish themselves. The lichens, or mosses, 
and an humble class of vegetation, present themselves, until pres- 
ently, from their decay, and the deposits of animal life in various 
forms, a rich mould is formed, and this barren rock becomes, in 



444 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

time, the fertile abode of animal and vegetable life. The re- 
cuperative power of nature is every where seen most active. 
Lands exhausted by cultivation are restored by the skill and 
labor of the faithful and enlightened cultivator. Even left to 
themselves, to the spontaneous efforts of nature, they recover 
their exhausted fertility ; and soils, which have never yet seen 
the sun, by being brought to the light and warmth of day, and 
to the refreshing and renovating influences of sun, and air, and 
rain, become productive, and stand ready to perform their part 
in supplying the wants of the vegetable, and through them of 
the animal creation. Trench-ploughing, which aims wholly to 
assist this operation of nature, and take advantage of its ready 
benevolence, is done by a single plough, which goes to a depth 
of at least fourteen inches, completely inverting this quantity of 
soil ; or the land is first ploughed in the ordinary mode, and a 
second plough follows in the same furrow, at a depth determined 
at the pleasure of the ploughman. In the former case, it is 
obvious that the surface soil is completely inverted and buried ; 
in the latter, the substratum is rather mixed with the upper soil. 
In the former case, it is clearly a very bold operation. On the 
Island of Jersey, famous for its cultivation of esculent roots, 
parsnips, and the white carrot, and other crops, they have what 
is called a trench-plough, which, going to the depth of fourteen 
inches, and throwing out a wide furrow, requires a heavy team. 
In this case, the neighbors club together, uniting their teams so 
as to assist each other.* The subsoil, unless there is a super- 

* I will give here the account of this operation, from Colonel Le Couteur, 
whose hij^h reputation is well established in the agricultural community. 

" In most cases, in the month of October or November, a skim-ploughing is 
given to an old, or two years' lea, which is left exposed to the winter frosts. It 
is well harrowed and cross-harrowed previous to carting out tlie manure, which 
is spread on the ground at a rate ranging between 12 and 20 tons per acre. In 
some cases, the above previous skim-ploughing is deferred until January or Feb- 
ruary, in order to allow the cattle to feed off any herbage that may be left on the 
land, so that the two ploughings now to be described take place in tlie same 
montb. 

" A short time (the shorter the better) previous to putting in the crop, the 
land receives its second, and generally last ploughing. The trench-plough tiien 
comes into play, preceded by its pioneer, the two-horse-plough. A trench is 
opened through the middle, or length of the field, in this manner. The two-horse- 
plough is made to cast o(F a furrow up and down, so as to assist in forming the 
trench ; the trench is then neatly sunli 18 inches deep, more or less, according to 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 445 

abundance of manure to be applied and mixed with it, cannot 
be brought at once into a state of active productiveness. Where 
there is a sufficiency of manure, however, there is, no doubt, some 
advantage gained, to what extent it is not easy to say, from the 
freshness of the virgin soil which is brouglit up. Otherwise, 
time and cultivation will be required to bring this fresh and 
comparatively inert soil into a condition of productiveness. In 
this case, however, the farmer must exercise his own judgment, 
and consider his own means. He may be sure that the deeper 
and the richer is the soil, or mould, which he has to cultivate, s: 
much the more abundant will be his crops. To create a soil, 
however, is not a sudden operation ; and, in cases where the 

the depth of the soil, and squared off two feet with spades, the earth being thrown 
off to a distance on each side. 

" A man with a spade should then be placed at each end of the furrow, to dig 
and square it out half the length of tlie trench-plough, as wide as the furrow in- 
tended to be taken, in order to enable it to plunge into its depth at once, on turn- 
ing in to work ; this is made at tlie left-hand side of either furrow, after the small 
two-horse-plough has made its start. 

" This two-horse-plough (one that will take a width of furrow one inch wider 
than the trench-plough) then precedes and turns in tJie manure and turf, together 
witli three inches of soil, into the bottom of the furrow, or prepared trench. The 
trench-plough, drawn by four, six, or eight horses, according to the depth desired, 
then turns over from ten to eighteen inches of clean soil on tlie turf, which is so 
completely buried as to destroy all vegetation, even in the freshly-broken sod. 
When the sod is quite fresh, as little soil as possible should be taken up by the 
small plough, so that the coach or weeds may be more completely covered by a 
great mass of clean soil. When the ploughed land becomes so wide as to render 
it inconvenient for one man, at each end, to open the furrow for the plough on one 
side, and square up the other side neatly, one man is placed at each corner to 
perform this work, so that two additional men ateach end of the land, or fcur in 
all, are now digging, levelling, and squaring up the corners. Two acres or moro 
may thus be turned up in a day, as the trench-plough takes a wide furrow from 
eleven to thirteen inches, and, by its excellent construction, moves and turns the 
whole soil. 

"This operation is performed by joint-stock labor by all the farmers in Jersey, 
who bring their teams to assist each other. It is appropriately denominated, not 
a great ploughing, but a great digging ; indeed, no spade husbandry is so effi- 
cient, as most men, in digging, merely turn the secondspit upon the under, or 
trench-slice, whereas the whole soil is shaken and broken by the trench-plough." 

Certainly the soil, in this case, must be very rich to bear being inverted at this 
depth. I give the whole account, rather as matter of agricultural curiosity, than 
v.'ith any notion of its being adapted to our husbandry. These very great opera- 
tions, in which so many men and so many horses are employed at one time, I have 
dways found of doubtful expediency, and should deem it prudent to seek more 
simple means of accomplishing the end, if more simple could be found. 

38 



446 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

surface is completely inverted, the rich soil is buried, and the 
undersoil brought to the top, he may labor in a sure hope of au 
ultimate compensation ; yet he must in such case wait with a 
manly patience ; and it may be advisable in some instances to 
have some regard to the length of his purse, and the time of his 
life ; perhaps, in England, it would be as well to add the terms 
of his lease, which may not always be such as to encourage sub- 
stantial improvements. Such improvements, being intended to 
be permanent, can hardly be otherwise than expensive. 

I do not know where I can better introduce to my readers 
an experiment upon soils, which I witnessed in progress in that 
admirable establishment, the Agricultural Museum and Nur- 
sery-Grounds of the Messrs. Drummond, in Stirling, Scotland, 
which I strongly recommend to the notice of every intelligent 
traveller in that picturesque and most interesting locality, 
whether his objects of pursuit be of an agricultural nature, or 
otherwise. If the experiment leads to no practical results, it is 
deserving of attention, as matter of philosophical curiosity. I 
give it from their own written communication to me. 

" Notice of a Comparative Trial of the Qualities of various pure 
Earths for supporting Vegetation, made in the Nursery- 
Grounds of W. Drummond and Sons, Stirling. 

" Garden pots eight inches in diameter were filled each with 
a pure earth, reduced, by pounding, to the consistency of gravelly 
sand, where it had previously existed in the indurated or rocky 
state. Oats were then sown about the middle of April, three 
plants being allowed to remain in each pot. The pots were 
plunged to the rim in an open border, cinders of coal being put 
under them, and care otherwise taken that the roots of the oats 
should obtain no extraneous nourishment. The plants were 
watered with common spring water, a few times, in very dry 
weather. 

" The stalks attained, in general, to the height of two and a 
half to three feet. The grain fully ripened about the beginning 
of September. 

" PRODUCE. 

Earths. Ears. Grains. 

"Granite, (Aberdeen,) 13 . 220 

Clay slate, (primitive,) . . 11 . 241 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 447 

Earths. Ears. Grains. 

Greenstone, (secondary trap,) 10 . 245 

Limestone, 9 . 251 

Chalk, 13 . 355 

Gypsum, (very sickly plants,) 6 . 40 

Sandstone, (silicious,) 12 . 230 

Pit-sand, (brown,) 12 . 210 

Blue clay, (taken ten feet under the surface,) . 10 . 242 

Mixture of all the above kinds, 9 . 190 

Common light loamy soil, 18 . 453 

" Experiments of this nature seem worthy of further prosecu- 
tion, particularly relative to the respective influence of the atmos- 
phere and soil in the nourishment of plants. When the oats 
were sown, scientific as well as practical men predicted, that in 
most of these earths they would not grow ; and when they saw 
them growing, predicted that they would not ripen seed. The 
results have proved otherwise." 

A single experiment, in such case, can hardly be considered 
as decisive, excepting as to the possibility of plants living and 
maturing in an immixed soil. The fact of their not succeeding, 
ivith one exception, so well in a soil composed of the several 
varieties as in a simple soil, is likewise noticeable. The superior 
success of the plants in loam is also to be observed, to show that 
their growth was not wholly dependent upon the atmosphere, as 
some would have us believe, and that the soil furnishes some- 
thing more than a mere support for the plants. The growth, in 
each case, must be considered as inferior ; and, without deducing 
any general conclusions, which might be premature, or endeav- 
oring to fit the facts to any received theory, I submit it to the 
further inquiries of those who have the curiosity and talent to 
pursue these interesting investigations. If it prompts to other 
well-conducted experiments, my object will be answered. 

The bringing of any considerable quantity of inert soil to the 
surface is obviously attended wnth uncertain results, so much 
depends upon the nature and condition of the soil so brought up. 
At the Duke of Portland's, at Welbeck, places were pointed out 
to me where the surface mould had been removed, a portion of 
the subsoil taken away, and the mould, or top soil, returned to 



448 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



its place ; but in no instance was its previous fertility restored. 
Deep cultivation will undoubtedly in the end recover such places, 
but time and patience are indispensable. 

7. Subsoil-Ploughing. — The next great operation, performed 
with the plough, is here called subsoiling. The object of this 
is similar to that of trench-ploughing — that of loosening the sub- 
stratum, and deepening the soil to be cultivated. But it differs 
in this respect : trenching, either by the spade or the plough, 
buries the surface soil, and covers it with that which is turned 
up ; but subsoil-ploughing aims to loosen the substratum to the 
depth required, without bringing it to the surface or covering 
the mould, and, by the gradual intermixture of the lower stratum 
with the upper soil, to enrich it, and ultimately convert the whole 
into an equally arable and fertile condition. Subsoiling is per- 
formed by a plough of a peculiar construction, following in the 
furrow of a common plough. If we suppose the first plough to 
have turned up the land to the depth of seven inches, the next 
plough loosens it to the depth of nine inches more, so that the 
whole land ploughed is in this case equal to sixteen inches. 
The great objection to trenching land, either by the plough or 
spade, is, that it brings the inert soil to the surface in a condition 
unsuited to the purposes of vegetation, and that thus much time 
is necessarily lost before it can, without great expense, be 
restored to its former fertility. The advantage of subsoiling is, 
that it so gradually raises the substratum to mingle with the top 
soil, that the cultivation of the latter is not interrupted, but the 
soil is benefited by the slight intermixture. Another and very 
great advantage derived from subsoiling, is in the admission of 
air and heat to the loosened soil, by which it is improved, and 
better subserves the purposes of vegetation, and at the same time 
opportunity is given for the free expansion of the roots of the 
plant. On many descriptions of soil, the surface, or vegetable 
mould, rests upon a hard pan at greater or less depth, and which 
is impervious to the roots of the plant, and does not suffer even 
the water to pass off freely. However long this may have 
existed, as the plough has usually gone only to a certain depth, 
this substratum has become the more indurated by the treading 
of the horses in the ploughed furrow, and the constant sliding 
of the sole of the plough over it. It is the object of the subsoil- 



GENERAL RULES FOR rLOUGIlING. 449 

plough always to break up this pan, wliich, after being broken 
up and exposed to the air, gradually crumbles and becomes min- 
gled with the upper soil. 

This is subsoiling, as it is here termed, of which every modern 
treatise of English husbandry is full. It can scarcely be said to 
be an absolutely new practice,* for passing a second plough in 
an open furrow may be considered as a species of subsoiling ; 
yet the credit of introducing the practice, and establishing it 
upon just principles, as connected with draining the land, must 
be fully accorded to Mr. James Smith, of Deanston, in Scotland, 
a man of whose sound understanding and practical skill I might 
speak in the highest terms, if my humble voice would add any 
thing to the distinguished and substantial reputation which he 
enjoys throughout the kingdom. I have been over the estate in 
Scotland which was under his care ; and, though the land may 
be considered as inferior, yet its fine appearance, the regular 
arrangement of his fields, the condition of his fences, and the 
perfect cleanness and productiveness of his grounds, present an 
eminent and beautiful example of the most improved husbandry. 
A great portion of his labors are indeed under ground, and out of 
sight ; but the results of them are obvious. 

Mr. Smith was the active manager of an extensive cloth or 
cotton factory, in the neighborhood of which was the farm on 
which he eff"ected such improvements. The condition of the 
factory in all its departments, the buildings for the persons who 
are employed in the factory, the whole arrangement of the facto- 
ry village, the condition and reputable conduct of the operatives, 
and the measures taken for their educational improvement, are 
very much in advance of what is to be found in many places both 
in England and the United States, and, while they do Mr. Smith 
himself the highest honor, present a beautiful example for imita- 
tion. Mr. Smith is entitled to the high merit, not of applying 



* Worledge, in his Mystery of Husbandry, describes (A. D. 1G77) very 
clearly the first rude attempt to construct a subsoil-plough. He tells us of " an in- 
genious young man of Kent, who had two ploughs fastened together veiy firmly, 
by wliich he plouglied two furrows at once, one under another, and so stirred tlie 
land twelve or fourteen inches deep. It only looseneth or lighteneth tlie land to 
that depth, but doth not bury the upper crust of the ground so deep as is usually 
done by digging." Quotod in Ransome's excellent work on the Implements of 
Agriculture, p. 13. 

38* 



450 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the subsoil-plough to the land merely, (by which the most valu- 
able improvements have been effected,) but to the interestmg 
community of several hundreds, over which, as the agent of the 
Deanston works or factory, he presided. By education, and by 
paternal care and interest in their welfare, he has done what he 
could for the improvement of their condition. He may be said 
to have broken up and elevated the lower strata, that, by bring- 
ing them from a degraded condition to the light and air, and by 
degrees preparing them to intermingle with the higher strata, he 
might alike benefit both parties, and substantially improve the 
character of the whole. 

Mr. Smitli invented a plough for the express purpose of sub- 
soiling, of which I design presently to give a plate. It is with- 
out a mould-board, but it has a feather on the share. Several 
other ploughs have been invented for the same purpose — one 
made under the direction of Mr. Pusey, called the Charlbury 
plough, which proposed to perform both the operation of plough- 
ing the land and subsoiling at the same time. It was therefore 
a common plough, and, several inches below the sole of the 
plough, and behind it, there was attached a turned-up or crooked 
tine or foot, calculated to descend into the soil in the furrow to 
the prescribed depth. The draught of this plough must be of 
course, by such an arrangement, considerably increased, and the 
instrument would appear rather clumsy in its operation. If it 
did its work well, this is all that could be required. One of its 
great merits is stated to be a considerable superiority over the 
Deanston plough, in lightness of draught. I have never seen 
it employed. Another subsoil-plough, which has been recom- 
mended, is a single iron tine or foot, attached to a proper frame 
with handles, and vv^hich, being drawn through the furrow after 
the other plough, loosens the soil in a single line. It would 
seem to be an instrument of small expense, as well as simple 
construction ; but it executes the work very imperfectly, not 
stirring the whole ground, but dividing it only in single lines. 
Mr. Smith's plough, having a small feather on the share, not only 
moves the whole bottom of the furrow, but it raises a small 
portion of the subsoil, and lays it against the side of the furrow 
already turned over, thus mingling the subsoil and the upper 
soil in some small portions together. This may be considered 
as a decided advantage. J3ut, to describe the practice of subsoil- 



GENERAL KULES FOR PLOUGHING. 451 

ing land without that of thorough-draining, which forms a part 
of the same system, would be unjust to Mr. Smith. This, how- 
ever, I shall do most fully under the subject of draining, which 
will come as matter of course. 

To subsoil without draining is not to be indiscriminately 
recommended. In heavy and clay soils, it would be of little use, 
as they would soon settle down into their former compactness. 
In some soils it would only serve to increase their wetness, as 
the water, sinking deeper into the ground, without any provision 
for its escape, would pass off less quickly by evaporation than 
if nearer the surface. In lighter soils, where its only effect 
would be to loosen the soil, it would undoubtedly be beneficial. 

8. Experiment in Subsoiling Heath Land. — An example 
of success in the application of the subsoil to heath land, which 
is within my knowledge, is so remarkable, that I will give it to 
my readers at large. The gentleman to whom I shall refer, Sir 
Edward Stracey, is himself the inventor of a subsoil-plough, 
known as the Rackheath plough, after the name of the property 
which he occupies, and which is much lighter of draught than 
the Deanston plough. 

" On my coming to reside on my estate at Rackheath, about 
six years since, I found 500 acres of heath land, composing two 
farms, without tenants, — the gorse, heather, and fern shooting up 
in all parts. In short, the land was in such a condition that the 
crops did not return the seed sown. The soil was a loose, 
loamy soil, and had been broken up by the plough to a depth not 
exceeding four inches, beneath which was a substratum (pro- 
vincially called an iron-pan) so hard, that with difficulty could 
a pickaxe be made to enter in many places ; and my bailiff, who 
had looked after the lands for 35 years, told me that the lands 
were not worth cultivating ; that all the neighboring farmers 
said the same thing ; and that there was but one thing to be 
done, viz., to plant with fir and forest-trees. To this I paid 
little attention, as I had the year preceding allotted some parcels 
of ground, taken out of the adjoining lands, to some cottagers, to 
each cottage about one third of an acre. The crops on all these 
allotments looked fine, healthy, and good, producing excellent 
wheat, carrots, peas, cabbages, potatoes, and other vegetables, in 
abundance. The question then was. How was this to be done ? 



452 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

On the outside of the cottage allotments, all was barren. It 
could not be by the manure that had been laid on, for the cot- 
tagers had none but that which they had scraped from the roads. 
The magic of all this I could ascribe to nothing else but the 
spade ; they had broken up the land eighteen inches deep. As to 
digging up 500 acres with the spade, to the depth of eighteen 
inches, at an expense of six pounds an acre, 1 would not attempt 
it. I considered that a plough might be constructed so as to 
loosen the soil to the depth of eighteen inches, keeping the best 
soil to the depth of four inches, and near the surface, thus ad- 
mitting air and moisture to the roots of the plants, and enabling 
them to extend their spongioles in search of food, — for air, mois- 
ture, and extent of pasture, are as necessary to the thriving and in- 
crease of vegetables as of animals. In this attempt I succeeded, 
as the result will show. I have now broken up all these 500 acres 
eighteen inches deep. The process was by sending a common 
plough drawn by two horses to precede, which turned over the 
ground to the depth of four inches. My subsoil-plough imme- 
diately followed in the furrow made, drawn by four horses, stir- 
ring and breaking the soil twelve or fourteen inches deeper, but 
not turning it over. Sometimes the iron-pan was so hard that 
the horses were set fast, and it became necessary to use the pick- 
axe, to release them, before they could proceed. After the first 
year, the land produced double the former crops, many of the 
carrots being 16 inches in length, and of proportionate thickness. 
This amendment could have arisen only from the deep plough- 
ing. Manure I had scarcely any, the land not producing then 
stover sufficient to keep any stock worth mentioning, and it was 
not possible to procure sufficient quantity from the town. The 
plough tore up by the roots all the old gorse, heather, and fern, 
so that the land lost all the distinctive character of heath land, 
the first year after the deep ploughing, which it had retained, 
notwithstanding the ploughing with the common ploughs for 
thivty-five years. Immediately after this subsoil-ploughing, the 
crop of wheat was strong and long in the straw, and the grain 
cla^e » osomed and heavy, weighing 04 pounds to the bushel ; 
the qu*»Ttity, as might be expected, not large, (about 26 bushels 
to the av,Te,) but great in comparison to what it produced before. 
The mili''.rs were desirous of purchasing it, and could scarcely 
^•'Heve it A^as grown upon the heath land, as in former years it 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 453 

was difficult to get a miller to look at a sample. Let this be 
borne in mind, that this land then had had no manure for years, 
was run out, and could only have been meliorated by the admis- 
sion of air and moisture, from deep ploughing. This year the 
wheat on this land has looked most promising ; the ears large 
and heavy, the straw long, and I expect the produce will be 
from 34 to 36 bushels per acre. My Swedish turnips on this 
land this year are very good ; my pudding and sugar-loaf turnips 
failing in many parts, sharing the fate of those of my neighbors, 
having been greatly injured by the torrents of rain which fell 
after they had shown themselves above the ground. Turnips 
must have a deep and well-pulverized soil, in order to enable 
them to swell, and the tap-roots to penetrate in search of food. 
The tap-root of a Swedish turnip has been known to penetrate 
39 inches into the ground. I will add only two or three gen- 
eral observations. 

" 1st. The work done by the plough far exceeds trenching 
with the spade, as the plough only breaks and loosens the land all 
around, without turning the subsoil to the top, which in some 
cases (where the subsoil is bad) would be injurious to the early 
and tender plants ; and if the subsoil is good, it would be ren- 
dered more fit for vegetation after the air and moisture had been 
permitted to enter. The ploughing is also far preferable to 
trenching by the spade, even for planting, (i. e. trees.) as it may 
be done at one fourth the expense. 

"2dly. It were very preferable, if possible, to work the horses 
abreast, pair and pair ; but, in using this plough, the horses must 
work in a line, for, if abreast, the horse on the land ploughed 
would soon be fatigued, by sinking up to his hocks ; and, to 
render the draught more easy, the second horse from the plough 
should not be fastened to the chains of the horse next the 
plough ; but the chains of the second horse shonld be made 
long enough to be hooked about two feet behind the back-band 
of the chains of the horse next the plough, so that the second 
horse will draw at an angle of about 33 degrees ; otherwise, 
were the chains of the second horse hooked in front of the back- 
chain, he would pull the whole weight of his draught, together 
with that of the horses preceding him, on the back of the horse 
next the plough ; and the strength of the horse would be lost in 



454 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



the draught, as his whole powers would be exerted in his en- 
deavors to prevent being brought down upon his knees. By so 
arranging the chains, the power of three horses would be equal 
to that of four." 

Such were the favorable results of this bold experiment. In 
many other cases, however, the result has not been so successful ; 
and when the state or character of the land is such as to retain 
the water, as (to use the expression of one highly intelligent 
farmer, who subsoiled his land without first draining it) "it some- 
times does like a sponge," the subsoiling is as likely, and per- 
haps more likely, to be injurious than beneficial. The Deanston 
system, as it is here called, of subsoil-ploughing and furrow- 
draining will presently be fully stated to my readers. 

9. Subturf-Plough, — The same gentleman last referred to, 
Sir Edward Stracey, is the inventor of what is called a subturf- 
ploiigh, which is fitted for use in lands where it is desirable to 
stir the soil beneath without breaking the turf. It does not 
differ much from the subsoil-plough ; and, being once inserted into 
the ground, breaks it up to the depth of about ten inches, leaving 
no other marks of its operation than the lines cut in the turf, 
which very soon, by the natural growth of the grass, become ob- 
literated. The lines are at the distance of about fourteen inches 
from one another. It loosens the soil underneath, admits the 
air and rain, and permits the roots to spread themselves. He 
says, "after a trial of it, that the quantity of the aftermath, and 
the thickness of the bottom, have been the subject of general 
admiration. Another advantage from this subturf-ploughing is 
that, before that took place, water was lying stagnant on many 
parts, (after heavy rains,) especially in the lower grounds, to a 
great depth ; now, no water is to be seen lying on any part, the 
whole being absorbed by the earth." This supposes that the 
lower strata, below where the plough has reached, are porous, and 
easily transmit the water, or, otherwise, it might be liable to the 
objections to which I have referred above. 

10. Perfection of English Ploughing. — I have spoken of 
the various modes of ploughing, and of the extraordinary exact- 
ness with which it is executed. It would be curious to trace 



( 455 ) 



smith's subsoil-plough. 




KACKHEATH SUBSOIL-PLOUGH. 
(See pp.451, 452.) 




" This performs the operation of subsoil ploughing, to the depth of from ten to 
sixteen inches below the surface, and, when preceded by the common plough, 
which is the plan recommended, the depth reached below the surface ground is 
just so much tlie more than the first plough effects," 



RACKHEATII SUETURF-PLOUGH. 
(Sec 




"This plough answers admirably for under-ploughing grass lands, and is made 
into a subturf-plough by changing the wheel gear in front to that of a carriage 
and two wheels." 



456 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



the progress of this art, from its rudest stages, to the beautiful 
and facile manner which distinguishes its performance in the 
best cultivated districts of England and Scotland. I do not like 
to say that no further improvements can be made. No reflecting 
man, who has witnessed the extraordinary changes, and inven- 
tions, and improvements, of half a century, and seen the contin- 
ually-shifting scenes, and the new actors presenting themselves 
on the stage, and bringing the treasures of their wisdom and 
skill to the vast accumulations which genius and science have 
already heaped up, will assert this of any human art ; but it is 
safe for me to say, that I do not know how, in the best cases, the 
execution of the work can be improved. Under the direction of 
an experienced and well-skilled ploughman, and an efficient and 
well-trained team, the implement itself moves like a thing of 
life, and performs its office wath the precision of the highest in- 
telligence. 

Tliis is not the effect of accident ; it is the work of severe and 
careful training. Boys are early accustomed to stand behind the 
plough, and stimulated by the strongest motives which can be 
addressed to their cupidity, their love of approbation, or their 
ambition of excellence. Under the prevalent subdivi^on of 
labor, to which I have before alluded, the advantages arising 
from practice, and a fixed attention to one particular object, are 
obviously secured. The man who ploughs, and does little else 
except ploughing, is far more likely to execute his work thor- 
oughly and well than the man whose attention is divided among 
a multitude and diversity of pursuits. 

11. Ploughing-Matches. — The ploughing-matches, likewise, 
in which most intelligent and severe judges are appointed, the 
rules of competition are stringent and absolute, and the golden 
rewards most liberal, have contributed essentially to the improve- 
ment of this art. 

We have witnessed the same results in the United States. I 
recollect the first ploughing-match at Brighton, under the 
auspices of the Massachusetts Society for promoting Agriculture. 
The gradual proficiency, from these early and comparatively rude 
trials, to the triumphant and beautiful results which, more than 
a quarter of a century afterwards, with honest pride, 1 have wit- 
nessed at Worcester, shows that there is no deficiency of talent 



GENEKAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 457 

and skill, and no lack of an honorable ambition of improvement, 
and that in the various departments of the arts, and in spheres of 
improvement and progress higher than those of the mechanical 
arts, all that is wanted among us, to the development of power 
and skill, is "a fair field and no favor." 

The regulations of the English plonghing-matches differ in 
some respects from those in the United States. The judges in 
the English ploughiiig-matches never come on to the field until 
the work is done and every team withdrawn. With us, they 
are present from the commencement to the close of the work. 
Our practice is, in my opinion, to be preferred. In the former 
case, no party is known, and impartiality, therefore, may be said 
to be perfectly secured. So far it is well. The work is accu- 
rately surveyed and measured ; the depth of the ploughing, the 
width of the furrow-slice, the mode of laying it ov^er, the straight- 
ness of the lines, the manner in which the first furrow-slices are 
brought together if it is ploughed back to back, or the finishing 
of the last and middle furrow if the piece is ploughed from the 
outside to the centre, the freedom from balks and breaks, are all 
carefully considered in the verdict rendered. In the United 
States, every effort is made to secure impartiality, consistently 
with other arrangements, inasmuch as that no names, but only 
rmmbers, are given to the judges, and the different plats of ground 
to be ploughed are drawn for by lot. Then the judges on the 
field observe the whole progress of the operation ; measure the 
different portions, as the work goes on ; and watch the temper 
and conduct of the ploughman and the training of his team, the 
manner in which he treats his team, and the condition in which 
they come off from the work. These circumstances all deserve 
consideration, and should come in as elements on which a judg- 
ment is to be made up. In both cases, it is understood, as it 
should be, that no party having any personal or pecuniary 
interest in the result shall have a place on the bench. The 
English are exact and positive in prescribing the depth of the 
ploughing, and the width of the furrow-slice even to a half-inch, 
and insist upon a uniform width throughout the whole. I have 
urged this same thing often upon committees, in my own coun- 
try, on which I have had the honor of being placed, and have 
been met with the objection, that this was requiring too much, 
and would operate as a discouragement. In my opinion, you 
39 



458 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

cannot require too much, provided you make your premiums in 
proportion liberal. Excellence is never attained by presenting 
an inferior standard. Let your rewards be as liberal as possible ; 
require the work to be done as well as possible ; and make your 
rules reasonable, but as stringent as possible ; and hold con- 
formity absolute and inevitable. In every such competition, 
there are minds in which the superior value and splendor of a 
triumph under such circumstances will rouse a powerful and 
noble ambition ; fire will be brought out of stone, and, as in 
some beautiful chemical experiments, you will see the blaze 
burning under the ice. But if you must have a scrub race, have 
it in another part of the field, and after the noble-spirited horses 
are withdrawn, and the donkeys and the Rosinantes are brought 
forward. 1 have never known a case, in which this loose system 
of accommodation and indulgence prevailed, and where the rules 
were narrowed or expanded to fit the occasion, that the decision 
of the judges gave general satisfaction, or ought to give sat- 
isfaction. 

It is very mortifying to fail in an object for which one has had 
a hard struggle. Many a noble fellow, after having reached the 
upper limbs of the tree, as he was upon the point of putting his 
hand on the fruit, has found himself, with every efl'ort and strain, 
not quite high enough to reach it, and perhaps has come tum- 
bling down, with his clothes torn, and his face scratched, to the 
ground. Upon such a mind, the only efi"ect was to rouse his 
ambition to a stronger pitch, to give new vigor to his muscles 
and new energy to his determination. This was as it should be. 

I have been told of an Irishman, — an Irishman he was. of 
course, for none but this clever people ever do such pleasant things, 
— that he called to demand the payment of the highest prize in 
the lottery, which he said he had drawn. Upon presenting his 
ticket, he was told that it was the number next above his to 
which the prize had fallen. He said " he knew that very well : 
but he did not suppose that such great folks would stand out for 
a single number." In all cases of competition, the prize should 
only be paid to the number which has actually drawn it. It 
may, in many cases, be expedient to give prizes for effort, and 
for partial excellence ; but if the premium is announced for ac- 
complishment, to accomplishment only should it be paid. 



GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 459 

12. Horses used for Ploughing, — Ploughing here is ahnost 
universally done with horses. 1 saw some oxen ploughing at 
Holkhara, with leather harnesses and breastplates, instead of 
yokes and bows, as employed in New England, and I have 
found oxen used in some few other cases, but, within my obser- 
vation, these cases are very rare. The question of the com- 
parative expediency of employing horses or oxen in farm work 
will come up for discussion presently. 

The horses are extremely well trained, and usually groomed 
with the greatest care. I have found one remarkable excep- 
tion to this practice, and that of a very large farmer of high 
repute. He never suffered his horses to be curried or sheared, 
or confined in stables. When brought home from their work, 
they were turned into open yards, with capacious sheds, and the 
stable doors, without any division of stalls, were always left open. 
The mangers were plentifully supplied with food, and the 
troughs with water, and they ate and drank, stood or reclined, 
or walked about, as they pleased. The yards and stalls were 
always most abundantly littered. I should have scarcely thought 
proper to mention a case of management, which some might pro- 
nounce careless and slovenly, and of which, in riding through 
some parts of New England, one would hardly be at a loss to 
find examples, were it not that this was the practice of a very 
large farmer, extremely skilful and intelligent, and the favorite 
tenant and model of one of the largest proprietors, and one of 
the greatest agricultural improvers in the country, (the late Lord 
Leicester,) and that he pursued this practice from choice, and 
because he deemed it most conducive to the health and comfort 
of the animals. He maintained that the animals, not being kept 
in warm stables, but familiar with the changes of the weather, 
bore them with less inconvenience and suffering than they other- 
wise would have done ; that a great deal of time and trouble 
was saved in the care of them ; that, being at liberty to lie down 
when they pleased, their rest was more refreshing than if con- 
fined and tied in a stall ; that, the hair being given them for a 
covering, it was wrong to strip them of their flannels at a season 
when they most needed them ; and that the dirt itself, matted 
among their hair, assisted in retaining the warmth. These were 
all philosophical reasons, which did not quite convince me of the 
wisdom and expediency of this mode of managing. The last 



460 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

argument, in respect to the dirt keeping the animals warmer, 
seems well understood, and practically exemplified, by many of 
the lower classes in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and, if well 
founded, might do something towards lessening the compassion 
which one must otherwise feel for their suffering from the want 
of fuel. The horses in possession of the farmer spoken of 
appeared in good condition, and were strong for labor ; and the 
practice pursued was of several years' standing. 

The usual practice is for the ploughman to be at the stables at 
four o'clock in the morning ; to clean, water, and feed his horses, 
and to be in the field at work at six o'clock. With a short time 
to rest occasionally, he continues his ploughing until two o'clock, 
when he returns to the homestead, the horses are thoroughly 
cleaned, and rubbed, and watered, and fed, and at last littered 
for the night — eight hours being considered as a day's work ; and, 
in ordinary cases, an English statute acre, of the same size as an 
American acre, is his allotted stint. There are cases of heavy 
land, in which only three quarters of an acre are considered a 
day's work ; and others, of lighter land, in which upwards of an 
acre and a quarter are accomplished. In Scotland, a pair of 
horses are ordinarily considered sufficient for any kind of land, 
and they are worked side by side. If three are employed, two 
walk upon the land, and one in the furrow. The practice of 
employing only two horses to a plough is beginning to prevail 
in England; but, in many instances, three and four horses are 
used, drawing at length. This practice is not so entirely with- 
out reason as some travellers represent it, for in some land it is 
desirable and necessary to avoid trampling it, and consolidating 
it the more, by the horses' tread ; but when, as it has occasion- 
ally happened, I have seen five horses harnessed lengthwise to a 
single plough, with two men at the plough, and three men or 
boys with the horses, my own admiration has sometimes bor- 
dered upon the ridiculous. The afiair of turning at the end, in 
such a case, is somewhat like wheeling a battalion of undisci- 
plined militia at a country muster, and, unless the field be very 
long, a large portion of the day must be occupied by these evo- 
lutions. The Scotch ploughman, with only two horses, and the 
reins over his neck, turns a corner like an officer's charger, and 
requires no aid. 

In some cases, ploughs with double mould-boards are used, 



A DIGRESSION. 



461 



which regularly turn two furrows at the same time. In light 
land, and where the ploughing is shallow, they save time and 
expense. In stronger lands, where three horses are sufficient, it 
is obvious that the expense of one horse is saved. In heavy 
lands, where four horses would be required on account of the 
double mould-board, it is obvious nothing would be gained. In 
parts of Lincolnshire, on the chalk formation, where the plough- 
ing for wheat was not more than three inches, these ploughs 
were much approved. I give below a cut of a double furrow- 





plough. The invention of this plough is by Lord Somerville : 
and it is certainly creditable for the ingenuity of its construction. 



LXXXII. — A DIGRESSION. 



Progress of Improvement. — I have gone thus at large into 
the operation of ploughing, because it is the great operation of 
husbandry ; and having finished the field, let us stand aside, and, 
looking at the work, indulge a moment the reflections which 
suggest themselves. 

A ruffle from under a crimping iron docs not present a more 
beautiful object than a well-ploughed field from under the hands 
of an English or a Scotch artist. The lines are all straight ; the 
furrows well turned ; the headlands cross-ploughed ; the corners 
finished. A well-disciplined mind enjoys the highest pleasure 
from seeing an operation of any kind, even the most humble, 
well performed, and perfected according to its proper measure. 

There is something, likewise, extremely gratifying in witness- 
39* 



462 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ing the progress and advancement of human skill and art. From 
digging the ground with a stick, that a hole might be made for 
the deposit of the seed, to the perfect inversion of it by the 
plough, what an immense stride ! That is now done in a day, 
which, in the rude ages referred to, could scarcely have been 
accomplished in a year ; and that is now performed with ease, 
and without any unkind tax upon the health of man or beast, 
which could not otherwise have been effected without the most 
severe exactions of human toil, and often at the expense of the 
premature shortening of human life. 



LXXXIII. — IMPROVED MACHINERY. 

There are persons continually complaining of the introduction 
and use of machinery in the place of human labor, and as there- 
fore prejudicial to the interests of the poor. At an agricultural 
dinner, I listened with a good deal of interest to a distinguished 
nobleman, who was defending machinery against this charge, 
by endeavoring to show that, so far from machinery lessening 
the demand for labor, it was the ordinary result of it to cause 
the employment of more persons than were occupied before its 
introduction. This may be the fact ; but if this were the only 
result, or if this result stood alone, it would not be a very strong 
recommendation, and should be classed with the kind of argu- 
ment used not long since in Parliament, in commendation of the 
corn laws, that they encouraged labor by rendering agricultu- 
ral produce dear, when it is obvious that, just in proportion as 
the price of agricultural produce increases, the value of the wages 
of the laborer decrease, his supplies are diminished, and, though 
labor is more in demand, it is worse paid. 

1. Machinery lightens Labor. — The value of improved 
machinery rests upon different grounds. Its first effect is to 
lessen the severity of human toil. Through the ingenious ap- 
plication of the mechanical powers, that is effected by the hand 
of a child, which the united force of hundreds of men, strained 



IMPROVED MACHINERY. 463 

to an intensity most painful and injurious, conlcl scarcely accom- 
plish. The wheel, and the lever, and the pulley, and the in- 
definite multiplication and curious combination of ])owers which 
art invents, execute works of a magnitude, before which the 
armies of an ancient or a modern Alexander might sit down in 
despair. Instead, according to the fashion of aticient monarchs, 
of throwing golden fetters into the torrent, to stem its force, 
modern science puts an iron bit into its mouth, and rides tri- 
umphantly upon its crested waves. The victories which human 
art has achieved over the elements of nature, once deemed un- 
tamable, adorn with matchless splendor the antials of our times; 
and yet, like the crepuscular light, like the first darting up of the 
morning rays upon the eastern horizon, they only presage the 
full light of day. Fire, water, air, in various forms, stand ready 
to do man's bidding ; and, as the miracle of modern art, the 
winged lightning presents itself to his service, and becomes the 
instantaneous bearer of intelligence between places the most dis- 
tant — between places whose distance, be it what it may, will 
make no perceptible difference in time or certainty, where once 
the means of an iminterrupted continuity of communication shall 
have been discovered. These are great achievements, and their 
effects are felt in every department of labor. In agricultural 
operations, if the mechanic arts have not yet done as much as 
in many other branches of industry, yet they have rendered no 
small contributions ; and it is not to be forgotten, that the agri- 
cultural interest, if not specifically served, shares as largely as 
any other class in the general benefits which the improvements 
of the mechanic arts confer upon society. The plough is an 
immense advance upon the spade ; the cultivator, upon the hoe ; 
the horse-rake and hay-tedder, upon the hand-rake and the 
common fork. The steam-engine performs the work of many 
men and many horses in the threshing of grain, and the pump- 
ing of water, and various other operations to which it is applied. 
In the fens of Lincolnshire, two immense steam-engines, one of 
eighty, and one of sixty horse power, under the care of one or 
two individuals, completely drain an extent of surface of many 
thousands of acres. They bring these hitherto waste tracts of 
country under the dominion of productive cultivation, and, by 
its magical influence, bid these unsightly and barren sands adorn 
themselves with the glittering tresses of a golden harvest. These 



464 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

are among the miracles of machinery, under the guidance of an 
intelligence which is an emanation from the Divine Spirit. 
One hundred and fifty thousand acres, in the neighboring fens, 
are now in the process of being redeemed from the sea, and com- 
pletely drained, by a similar machinery. The courtiers of the 
king may now safely challenge him to place his chair upon the 
beach, and bid the waves retire. What could human labor 
effect in such cases without the aid of machinery ? For all the 
men, and women, and children, in England, to have attempted to 
accomplish such a work, without such help, would have been as 
wise as to undertake to dip out Lake Superior with a table- 
spoon.* 

2. Machinery increases Production. — The second effect of 
machinery is, to multiply production to an unlimited extent. A 
cotton manufactory at Manchester turns out in a day as much 
cotton cloth as, under the old system of household spinning and 
weaving, could have been made in all Lancashire in a fortnight, 
perhaps a month. With improved machinery, twenty acres — 
may I not say fifty? — can be ploughed, harrowed, manured, 
drilled, cultivated, and the produce harvested, and threshed, and 

* " If reference is made to the evidence given before the House of Commons, 
to which the numerous petitions complaining of agricultural distress were re- 
ferred in 1821, it will be seen that, at that time, almost the only grain produced 
in the fens of Cambridgeshire consisted of oats. Since then, by draining and 
manuring, the capability of the soil has been so changed, that these fens now 
produce some of the finest wheat that is grown in England ; and this more costly 
grain now constitutes tlie main dependence of the farmers in a district Avhere, 
fourteen years ago, its production was scarcely attempted." 

" It has been found that an engine of the power of ten horses is sufficient for 
draining 1000 acres of land, and that, on the average of years, tliis work may be 
performed by setting tlie engine in motion for periods amounting in the aggre- 
gate to 20 days of 12 hours each, or 240 hours in all. Several engines have 
been erected for tliis purpose within the last tlirco or four years, some of them 
having the power of CO or 70 horses : each of these large engines is employed in 
draining from 6000 to 7000 acres of land. The cost of tlie first establishment of 
these engines is stated to be £1 per acre, and the expense of keeping them at 
work 2 s. G d. per acre. This plan is found to bring with it tlie further advantage 
that, in the event of long-continued drouglit, the farmer can, witliout apprcliension, 
admit the water required for his cattle, and for the purpose of irrigation, secure 
in the means he possesses of regulating the degree of moisture, if the drought, 
as is frequently tlie case, should be followed by an excess of rain." — Porter's 
Progress of the jYaiion. 



IMPROVED MACHINERY. 465 

prepared for food, where, under the rude system of the aborigines 
of the country, the cultivation of only one could be carried on, 
and its produce secured. Indeed, all such comparisons seem 
idle, because, without machhiery of some kind, no cultivation 
whatever could take place. The human hand is itself a machine, 
and one of the most perfect description. If there is any advan- 
tage in having two hands rather than one, then there must be a 
correspondent advantage in any contrivance by which one hand 
can be made to do the work of two, or two hands of four, and 
still more when one can be empowered to do the work of 
thousands. 

From the manner in which some men speak of machinery, 
one would suppose that the world would be better and happier 
if men and women were to go back to simple fig-leaves for 
aprons, and undressed sheep-skins for coverings, and find shelter 
and repose at night under some overhanging rock, or on a bed 
of hemlock boughs, in a wigwam of birch-bark. I have no 
sympathy with such "simple and primitive" notions. I will 
say nothing of the charms and blessedness of a state of perfect 
innocence, because I would not offend any honest man's preju- 
dices, nor thrust my face and hands against the porcupine armor 
of controversial theology ; but I confess I have always had some 
misgivings as to the happiness of what poets describe as the 
golden age, and theologians depict as the paradisiacal state, 
when the human race had nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, 
and to enjoy themselves in doing nothing — an experiment which, 
whenever I have tried it, I have always found extremely monot- 
onous and wearisome. Strength is to be found only in the 
exertion of the muscles; food yields its nourishment only when 
the machinery of digestion is in full operation ; and health, 
and power, and happiness, are compatible only with the highest 
activity of the physical and the intellectual faculties. 

When the ignorant and vulgar, whose views do not extend 
beyond the first immediate effects, burn factories; and break 
threshing-mills to pieces, an enlightened and generous mind 
would feel compassion for their ignorance and infirmity ; but 
when minds of a different order, professing to be enlightened, 
become, as we sometimes see them, the cavillers against im- 
proved machinery, and prate about the "simplicity of tlie good 
old times," when men used clam-shells for spoons, and thorns 



466 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

for pins, and goat-skins for glass bottles, and wooden bowls 
instead of china, — and, in some instances, do far worse by foster- 
ing the vindictive prejudices of the vulgar against those inven- 
tions of art and genius which relieve the severity, facilitate the 
exertion, and immensely increase the productive power of labor, — 
I hold them as without excuse, and could wish them no worse 
lot than to be exiled for a season to some parts of Ireland, where 
these prejudices against improved machinery are as fierce as 
theirs can be, and v/here they may find millions living in a state 
of destitiilion as complete and absolute as seems compatible with 
the continuance of life. 

3. General Effects on Labor. — I confess, however, there 
is one view of this subject wliich I must not pass over, and 
which I cannot take with equal complacency. The efiects of 
improved machinery should be to alleviate and to shorten 
human toil, and, in multiplying production, to extend more 
widely the supply of food, and the common comforts of life. 
The laboring man should, on every principle, be the first to 
share in these benefits ; but far too often he is the last. Food 
is greatly multiplied both in quantity and variety; but, in a 
country where labor is superabundant, the wages of labor 
become proportionately reduced, and the power to purchase 
restricted. There can be no doubt that, in respect to clothing 
and furniture, the condition of the laboring population is greatly 
improved above what it formerly was. An American clock, for 
example, made in Connecticut, — that home of industry and the 
useful arts, — an article both useful and ornamental, and in which 
the " gude " housewife is sure to take an honest pride, may be 
purchased in London for a pound. A century ago, this would 
have been an article of furniture which a nobleman might covet. 

But it is too true that improved machinery scarcely dimin- 
ishes — in many cases it increases — the demand for human and 
brute labor. Two men only are required to thresh grain with a 
flail ; from five to eight, besides the horses, or the attendants 
upon the steam-engine, are employed at the threshing-machine. 
Much more is threshed, and, in consequence of these increased 
facilities, much more is grown, and therefore requires to be 
threshed. "But for the invention of the steam-engine, a large 
proportion of the coaJ mines now profitably worked could not 



IMPROVED MACHINERY. 467 

have been opened, or must have been abandoned. It is well 
known that, by the consumption of one bushel of coals in the 
furnace of a steam-boiler, a power is produced which, in a few 
minutes, will raise 20,000 gallons of water from a depth of 350 
feet — an effect which could not be produced in a shorter time 
than a whole day through the continuous labor of twenty men, 
working with the common pump. By thus expending a few 
pence, an amount of human labor is set free, to employ which 
would have cost fifty shillings ; and yet this circumstance, so 
far from having diminished the demand for human labor, even in 
the actual trade where the economy is produced, has certainly 
caused a much greater number of persons to be employed in 
coal -mining than could otherwise have been set to work." * 

It certainly is matter of congratulation, rather than of com- 
plaint, that more food is produced to be eaten, more clothing to 
wear, and more fuel with which to warm our habitations and to 
apply to other purposes of utility, necessity, or enjoyment ; but, 
in looking at the severity and long continuance of toil to which 
a large part of the laboring portion of the community are sub- 
jected, and how, in many of the arts and operations of manufac- 
tures and trade, human health and comfort are wholly disre- 
garded, and human life is used up with as much indifference as 
fuel is thrown into the furnace of the steam-engine, one cannot 
help deeply lamenting that the burden cannot be lightened on 
the back of the hard-driven animal, and that they whose toil 
produces every thing are put off with the smallest and meanest 
portion of the fruits of their own industry. How far govern- 
ment should interfere, in such a case, between the employer and 
the employed, is a question not without great practical diffi- 
culties. Human society is such a complicated web, that the 
extreme tension of any single thread disorders the whole piece. 
Every provision should be made for the protection of the young 
and helpless ; opportunity should be afforded for the full devel- 
opment of their physical powers, and for the education of their 
minds. No pains should be spared to protect good morals and 
decency, and to secure human life against any extraordinary perils. 
The hours of labor should not be too long extended, nor the 
hours of seasonable rest encroached upon ; and, in any case 

* Progress of the Nation, vol. i. p. 335. 



468 EUKOPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

where they are wholly dependent upon others for the provision 
which they require, that provision should be at least as kind and 
liberal for the human bipeds as for the domestic quadrupeds. 
It might be extremely difficult to effect this ; but, until this is 
done, our condition is not half Christian. Avarice, by force, or 
cunning, or art, — openly sometimes, but more often covertly, — 
is constantly triumphing over humanity and justice ; and it may 
be regarded as the Juggernaut of civilization, crushing with in- 
difference all who come in its way. 



LXXXIV. — MORAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

Before we turn from the ploughed field which we have been 
contemplating, I have but one or two more remarks to make, 
which will not, I hope, be deemed out of place. The ordinary 
operations of nature are so familiar, that we cease to look at 
them with surprise. We choose to wrap ourselves up in our 
own conceit, and, certain facts regularly occurring under certain 
conditions and circumstances, we satisfy ourselves with saying 
that it is according to the laws of nature, and think therefore 
that we imderstand it. I do not perceive that we understand it 
any the better because it is according to the laws of nature ; 
since these laws themselves, in their ultimate causes and opera- 
tions, are utterly insoluble to the human understanding, and the 
frequency and uniformity of their results, so far from lessening, 
actually increase the miracle. I say miracle, for in no other 
light than as miraculous can we regard the changing scene 
which is now to pass before our eyes. The field, as we now 
look at it, presents but a naked surface of inert dust ; but there 
are powers and influences at work, within and around it, of the 
most subtle and amazing character. The earth has opened its 
bosom, and the children of men are to receive nourishment and 
life from the bounty of their common mother. Man casts the 
dry seeds upon these naked furrows, and they are at once quick- 
ened into life. The earth, the air, the sun, the rain, all lend 
their combined aid, in exactly such measure, and at such time, 



HARROWING. 4C9 

as is needed for the perfection of the work. The plants rise 
out of the ground with a spirit and beauty which no human art 
can rival. Tlie hand of an invisible artist is at work to expand 
the roots, to train the stem, to mould the leaves, to protect all 
with a net-work of the finest web, to throw in colors of exquisite 
beauty, and to fill the pendent seed-vessels with bread, for the 
sustenance and nourishment of animal life. In a few weeks, or 
months, the field so lately naked and desolate is laden with 
treasures far richer than gold, and for which all the glittering 
diamonds of Peru, and all the shining pearls of Orient climes, 
would be no substitute. Man gathers what, with strange pre- 
sumption, he calls the products of his skill and labor, and fills 
his garner with the golden treasures of the fields. Now, because 
this happens so regularly and so frequently, shall it cease to 
excite his surprise, and touch his heart ? In my humble opinion, 
its frequency, and its comparative certainty, vastly expand the 
miracle ; and if the rich fruits of a beneficence, so entirely 
beyond his command and control, yet withal so constant, so 
faithful, so liberal, call out no aspirations of piety, if " harvest 
home " awakens no anthem of thanksgiving and reverence in 
his soul, he must not claim an equality even with the animals 
which he drives, for " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass 
his master's crib." 



LXXXV. — HARROWING. 

There are various operations to be gone through with, after 
the ploughing. The first object in English cultivation is to 
reduce the soil to as fine a tilth as possible. Tull, who is some- 
times called the father of English arable cultivation, deemed the 
loosening, and stirring, and reducing the soil, as all that was 
necessary to its productiveness, and that manure might be dis- 
pensed with. The first position was the foundation of great 
improvements ; but the latter was soon discovered to be an 
error. His practice, which was tried by many persons, laid the 
foundation of what is called the New Husbandry, and may be 
40 



470 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

considered as constituting an era in English agriculture. It is 
curious to observe, that oftentimes, in human history, great mis- 
takes lead to great improvements and discoveries; and in the 
complicated course of human aifairs, a divine Providence, in 
comparison with which human sagacity can scarcely be con- 
sidered other than as arrant folly, converts the errors of man 
into instruments of truth and knowledge. Experiment is the 
highway to science, and it is as desirable, in many cases, to 
know wliat will not, as to know what will succeed. Men are 
always ready, through self-esteem and. the love of approbation, 
to detail and magnify any fortunate results ; but he is a brave 
man, and more entitled to respect, who, by way of caution, will 
expose his failures, and guard the sanguine and adventurous 
against the errors in which he himself became involved. This 
is a noble disinterestedness ; but many men, like the fox who 
lost his brush in a steel trap, wish nothing so much as to see 
their neighbors subjected to the same mortification. 

The Romans, in their husbandry, prescribed four distinct 
processes of arable culture. The first was to break the land : 
the second to turn it over ; the third was to break it again ; the 
fourth was to turn it again.* They understood perfectly the 
use and advantages of thorough and deep tillage. The English 
farmers are fully aware of this, and follow repeated ploughings, 
with various other processes. 

The first is that of harrowing. This is done lengthwise with 
the furrow always in the first instance, and then crosswise, 
until the surface is completely mellowed and pulverized. With 
us, in general, harrows are made single, and the teeth set in 
wooden frames, and, though they are usually made square, yet 
the chain is generally attached to one of the corners, which 
gives them a diamond shape, and is supposed to lessen the 
draught. We seldom take a breadth, in such case, of more than 
four and a half or five feet. Here the best harrows are made, 
both frames and teeth, of iron. The teeth, or tines, work to a 
depth of five to eight inches, and follow each other in lines 
about four inches apart. Seed harrows, or harrows for covering 
the seed, have tines about four inches in length, and are made 
proportionately light. 

* 1. Fringcre. 2. Vertere. 3. Refrinjrere. 4. Revertere. 



HARROWING. 471 

I do not know that I can do better for my readers, than to 
subjoin the remarks and iUustrations of one of the most eminent 
implement makers in Great Britain, Mr. J. Allen Ransome, in 
his valuable treatise on the "Implements of Husbandry." 

" It is admitted, by all acquainted with the subject, that har- 
rowing, especially on heavy soils, is the most laborious operation 
on the farm, — not so much, perhaps, on account of the quantum 
of power requisite for the draught, (though this is sometimes 
considerable,) as for the sjoeed with which the operation is, or 
ought to be, accompanied ; and yet it is frequently left to the 
charge of mere boys, and sometimes performed by the worst 
horses on the farm. 

" If we examine a field, one half of which has been harrowed 
with weak, inefficient horses, and whose pace was consequently 
sluggish, the other half with an adequate strength and swiftness 
of animal power, we shall find the former will be rough and 
unfinished, the latter comparatively firm and level, and com- 
pleted in what would be called a husbandry-like manner. 
Scarcely any thing in farming is more unsightly than the wavy, 
serpentine traces of ineflicient harrowing. The generality of 
harrows appear too heavy and clumsy to admit of that despatch 
without which the work cannot be well done ; and though it is 
evident that different soils demand implements of proportionate 
weight and power, yet, for the most part, harrows have been 
rather over than under weighted, particularly when employed 
after a drill, or to bury seeds of any kind. 

" Harrowing has been so long regarded as an operation which 
must be attended with considerable horse-labor, that attention 
does not appear to have been sufficiently turned to the inquiry 
whether this labor might not be greatly reduced, by lightening 
the instruments with which it is performed. Many would be 
surprised at the amonnt of reduction of which seed-harrows, at 
least, are capable, and, where land is clean, to see how effectively 
a gang of very light small-toothed harrows may be used. 

"Having noticed, in some parts of Norfolk, the perfect manner 
in which seed corn is covered by a common rake with wooden 
teeth, a friend of mine constructed a gang of harrows on the 
following plan, and he states that it proved the most popular and 
useful implement of the kind to the farm. 



472 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



Gang of lAght Seed-Harrmvs. 



I I I . I T^ 



'■^rP. 



1 1 1 



J I ,.,! ' I li 
'I ! I I I I I 



; 1 I I h I iFr 



Im 



I i 



ill ill 



iili:!! 



1 1 1 !i I 




'* The frames are of ash, and as light as 
possible, with iron teeth, being but three 
inches long, exclusive of the part which 
enters the wood-work. They screw 
into the balks in the manner shown in 
the annexed figure. 

"It should be observed that the above four harrows are amply 
sufficient to cover a twelve-furrow stetch or ridge, of 108 inches, 
but three will be wide enough for a three-furrow stetch of 90 
inches, exclusive of a small portion of the furrows. If for some 
purposes the teeth be found too thick, every alternate tooth may 
be taken out; but for general purposes this will hardly be neces- 
sary. The two horses require, on this plan, to be kept quite 
level ; for, if one be suffered to go in advance of the other, a 
diagonal line is produced, by which the teeth will be made to 
follow each other, instead of cutting fresh ground. I am aware 
that, by the usual construction of harrows, a diagonal line of 
draught is required, in order to throw the teeth into a proper 
working position ; but I am strongly inclined to the opinion, 
that the correct working of the implement ought to depend on 
its construction, and not on any particular mode of working it. 
Besides, the system of keeping one horse in advance of his 
partner is bad in principle ; it is an unequal division of labor, 
the fore-horse being compelled to do more than his share of the 
work, which, under any circumstances, is always heavy enough. 



HAIUIOVVING. 



473 



The balks of the above .set of harrows were made of wood, in 
order to insure extraordinary lightness; but, for general purposes, 
I prefer those made of iron, the weight of which can be increased 
to any reasonable degree, without adding much to their sub- 
stance. This is important in working tenacious clays, which, 
by adhering to the common clumsy wooden balks, considerably 
increase the labor, and at the same lime impede the proper 
execution." 

Sometimes harrows are made in two parts, that is, two small 
and complete harrows, placed side and side, and united by flex- 
ible hinges. In such case, the harrow can be reduced to half 
its width, by one part being doubled over on the back of the 
other ; or, when the land is in ridges, and the harrow travels on 
the summit of the ridge, the two parts, by the flexible junction 
in the centre, are able to accommodate themselves to the curva- 
ture of the ground upon which they travel. Sometimes three or 
four harrows are attached flrst to each other, by these hinges, 
side and side, and then to a single beam, to the ends of which 
the traces of the horses are appended, and in this case they 
sweep a breadth of nine feet. This carries on the work with 
great rapidity. A pair of good horses might carry such a breadth 
without difficulty, upon light land ; but upon a heavy and tena- 
cious soil, the labor would be too great for them. 



"Gang of Heavy Iron Harrows. 




" The above engraving of iron harrows is introduced to show 
the form in which they are usually made ; they are used in 
40* 



474 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



gangs of three, four, or five, as may be required to suit the lands 
on which they are used, and may be made to any weight re- 
quired." * No intelligent farmer, however, will ever think of 
harrowing his land, unless it be of the lightest description, in a 
wet state. It has been by some persons deemed an improve- 
ment to make the front tines of a harrow shorter than the back 
ones ; but no advantage comes from this. By many the practice — 
and in my opinion with reason — is condemned, as the instrument, 
in such case, unless brought too near the horses, will be found to 
dip in front, by which means the draught is considerably in- 
creased. Teeth of a uniform length throughout are to be pre- 
ferred. The flexibility given to a harrow, by a hinge in the 
centre, is a great improvement. In many cases, one harrow is 
attached to another so as to follow it, but so far removed to one 
side or the other, that the teeth follow in different lines. In 
such case, it is obvious that the draught must be very much 
increased, both from the distance of the last harrow from the 
moving power, and from its lying flat and dead upon the ground, 
and having no advantage of the lift which is given to the for- 
ward harrow by the chain which attaches it to the horses, and 
which it would have, if it were set in the same frame. 

There are several varieties of harrows, but, excepting the frame 
being made of iron instead of wood, and their being connected 
by hinges, so as that the frame becomes, so to speak, flexible, I 
see no prominent excellence to be pointed out. "In an experi- 
ment made between a pair of wooden harrows and a pair of iron 
ones constructed on the same plan, and having the same number, 
and precisely the same disposition, of the teeth and frames, 
although those of iron were found to be 20 pounds lighter than 
those of wood, yet the former worked decidedly better and 
steadier than the latter ; in fact, the iron harrows cut into the 
land, while those made of wood rode, or rather danced, upon the 
surface." 

A harrow, called a web or chain brush harrow, invented by 
Mr. Smith, of Deanston, I have seen, but not in operation ; and 
its effect must be to reduce the surface to a very fine tilth, but it 
is not its object to penetrate the soil. If we take a number of 
small iron circular plates, perhaps three inches in diameter, with 

* Ransome. 



HARROWING. 



475 



thin or sharpened edges, and string them upon iron rods, upon 
which they will revolve freely, and arrange them in squai'es like 
the panes of a window or sash, and with enough of them to 
form the desired size of a harrow, we shall have formed the 
instrument to which I refer. As they revolve vertically, and 
are drawn over the surface, their tendency is to cut all the lumps 
into fine pieces, and to leave the surface well reduced and pul- 
verized. 

At Lord Hatherton's well-managed farm, at Teddesley Park, 
Staffordshire, I saw a revolving harrow, somewhat resembling a 
hay-spreading machine, the long and curved teeth of which pen- 
etrated the ground deeply, thoroughly stirred it, and brought the 
weeds and rubbish to the surface. It was moved upon low 
wheels, and performed its work most effectually. 

I shall borrow, for the benefit of my readers, an account of 
Biddell's extirpating harrow from Mr. Ransome's valuable book, 
before quoted. I have not seen the instrument at work, but 
its efficiency will be understood from the account. 

•' Biddell's Extirpating Harrow. — This is a new implement, 
invented by Arthur Biddell, of Playford, and similar to the scar- 




ifier which bears his name. It is intended for breaking up land 
when it is too hard for the heaviest harrows, and for bringing 
winter fallows into a state of fine tillage. In working summer- 



476 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

lands, it is calculated, by the shape of its teeth, to bring to the 
surface all grass and rubbish. The teeth are placed in three 
rows, in order to allow sufficient distance fr«m each other to 
prevent choking, and the implement is so constructed as that, by 
means of levers, the teeth may be elevated or depressed at 
pleasure. According to the form of the lands it may be required 
to operate upon, it may either be used perfectly parallel, or the 
fore teeth may be made to penetrate deeper than the hinder ones, 
whilst those at either side may, when one wheel is required to 
run in the furrow, be instantly adjusted to the level of the land, 
so that every tine shall penetrate to a uniform depth of six 
inches, if required ; and they will work equally well at any less 
depth. 

" I have frequently seen this implement at work on very foul 
land and on stubbles, when it has been too hard to allow the 
use of the plough. As the interval between the lines formed by 
its teeth does not exceed four inches, the soil has been com- 
pletely stirred. The tines may be either used with points or 
with steel hoes; and with the latter the skimming, or, as it is 
frequently called, the 'broadshare' process, may be quickly 
accomplished. The weight is not found to be a disadvantage, 
but, from the stability it gives, the contrary ; and, being borne 
on high wheels, it does not require so much horse-labor as might 
be snpposed, two horses, on most soils, being generally suffi- 
cient." 



LXXXVI. — SCARIFYING, OR GRUBBING. 

What is called, in England, the scarifying or grubbing of land, 
is little else than harrowing it with a deeper and stronger instru- 
ment than a common harrow, with a view to reduce it to fine 
tilth, and to bring up the roots and weeds which may infest the 
land. The English and Scotch aim, in their husbandry, at an 
extreme cleanness of cultivation. There are — as it would be 
strange if there were not — examples among them of slovenly 
cultivation ; but cleanness is the prominent and almost universal 
characteristic of their husbandry. The late Lord Leicester, (Mr. 



SCARIFYING, OR GRUBBING. 477 

Coke, of Holkham) used to make it his boast, that not a weed 
could be found in extensive fields of his cuhivation, and offered 
a high reward for the discovery of one. The couch grass, 
(triticum rcpois,) and the common charlock, (wild mustard,) and 
the poppy, abound, in some districts, to a most extraordinary 
degree ; and in cleaning the fields, in the autumn, of couch grass, 
the piles of it which are sometimes seen would lead one to 
suppose that it was the only crop grown on such places. In 
some cases, where the land is very dirty, and the cleansing very 
thorough, the heaps of weeds have been as numerous as cocks 
of hay in a mown field. 

The general practice is, to burn these heaps upon the field, to 
the expediency of which I strongly demur. The amoinit of 
ashes obtained in such case is altogether inconsiderable. The 
couch grass being extremely vivacious, and propagated from 
every joint, it is not easy to bury it so deep as to extirpate it. 
Some of the Scotch farmers pile it up at the outside of their 
fields, and mingle with it quicklime, which of course soon 
consumes it. I cannot help thinking it would be much better to 
use it as litter in the cattle-sheds or stalls, and fold-yards, where, 
by the trampling of the stock, it would soon become decomposed, 
and, without danger of starting again into life, it would go to 
essentially increase the compost heap. 

The operation of scarifiers, or grubbers, will be seen at once 
by a reference to the plate. Many of them are certainly very 
efficient instruments, and, when the team is sufficiently powerful, 
stir the land most thoroughly to a great depth. There is a con- 
siderable variety of them ; and the peculiar excellences of each 
of them are always fully set forth by the inventor or maker, — 
in doing which, there seems to be no want of talent or address 
among the English, and some of them may fairly challenge com- 
petition with Peter Pindar's razor-seller, or with any of the 
vivacious and voluble tribe of Connecticut pedlers. 

The infinite variety of machines and mechanical contrivances 
exhibited at the great agricultural shows in this country, cover- 
ing literally acres and acres of ground, strikes a visitor with 
astonishment. As, in reading the accounts of patent medicines 
in the public newspapers, one is led to think that the reign of 
disease is abolished, and the victory of health, life, and perpetual 
youth, on earth, secured, so, in looking at the number and variety 



478 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



of agricultural implements presented on such occasions, and the 
diversity of purposes which they are most certainly and effcctii- 
ally to accomplish, one is almost persuaded that human labor 
and superintendence may be dispensed with ; and that the 
farmer, as he would wind up his clock on Monday morning so 
that it may run all the week, so he has only to set his agricul- 
tural machinery in motion, and may then leave the field with a 
quiet confidence that every thing will proceed as he desires it 
should. After having visited, likewise, the establishments of 
many large proprietors, and seen the broken and condemned 
implements, and the piled-up, useless lumber of this description, 
in their implement-rooms and sheds, I cannot help thinking that 
there is, among a great many men well informed in other mat- 
ters, a fair share of susceptibility to imposition; that "razors 
made to sell " meet with no want of purchasers in England ; 
and that the manufacturers perfectly understand themselves, 
when they have got their pail under a full cow. The human 
tongue is certainly an extraordinary piece of machinery, and its 
flexibility cannot be sufficiently admired. I see, in the papers of 
the week when I am writing, an advertisement of a potato- 
powder, recommended to families to be put into the pot with the 
potatoes to be boiled, so as to correct the evils of the diseased 
potato, and not only to neutralize its pernicious influences, but 
actually to convert the diseased portions into useful nourishment. 
The price and place of sale are both given. There will be many 
to buy, beyond all question. When will the reign of empiricism 
cease on earth ? When the last man has left it ; and not sooner. 

The operation of scarifying will be better understood from a 
picture of some of the principal instruments in use than from 
any verbal description. 

The first to which I shall refer is called, after the name of its 
inventor, 

Biddell's Scarifier — and I shall allow the manufacturer to 
speak for himself. 

" This implement is for the purpose of cultivating land under a 
variety of circumstances, and bringing it into a proper state of 
tilth much more efiectually, and at less expense, than can be 
done by the means generally employed for that purpose. 



SCARIFYING, OR GRUBBING. 



479 



"It may be successfully used to clean wheat, bean, and pea 
stubbles, directly after harvest ; 

" To break up such parts of clover layers as may have failed 
in the plant, and to break up land after green crops, in May or 
June, in preparation for turnips, coleworts, &c. ; thus accom- 
plishing fine and deep tillage, without bringing fresh earth to 
the surface-land, in preparation for barley and oats. 




"Its Advantages are — Saving, in Tillage, of half the labor, 
both manual and horse, over the ordinary method of cleaning 
land. 

" Saving of Time. Lands may be broken and stirred, with 
this implement, in much less time than with the plough. 

" Improved Cultivation. The operation of this scarifier is much 
more effective for spring crops on strong lands than ploughing, 
as it occasions less treading by horses, produces more mould, and 
allows the moisture to be more advantageously retained ; and the 
seed will be deposited in the soil which has been exposed to the 
winter frosts. 

" Less harroiving is required, as the land is broken up, and 
left much finer than after the plough. 

"The couch g?-ass (if any) is brought to the surface without 
breaking it. 




480 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

" The land is left by this implement hi a state to be immedi- 
ately harrowed, which may be done in time to break the clods 
before they become too hard. 

" In all cases, where it is desirable to give tillage to the land 
without turning down the surface, this implement may be used 
with great advantage. 

'■'■Directions for using the Scarifier. — In using the scarifier, 
attention should be paid to set it level, and the depth of scarify- 
ing may be varied from one to ten inches, which is done by 
means of the two levers. 

'' When the land is very hard, and required 
to be cut clean, first use the chisel points, and 
then follow with the wide hoes. 

'• The chisel points only should be used on 
clover lej^s ; the roots of the clover being too tough for the hoes, 
and are not required to be cut up. 

" The horses should be kept in a direct line, and the imple- 
ment not suffered to turn without tahing the fore part out of the 
ground ly means of the long lever. Particular attention should 
be paid to this ; for, although the slanting direction in which the 
tines are set will bear the draught required while the horses go 
straight forward, they cannot stand against the twist, if the 
scarifier be turned round before the front tines are taken out of 
their work. It is also needful to observe, that the draught iron 
from the fore wheels, upon which the whippletrees hang, should 
be suspended by the draught chain higher than where the three 
drauglU irons (when in work) go upon the upright part of the 
fore axletree ; otherwise, this may bend or give way. 

" The wheels, on either side, may be made to go higher or 
lower by shifting the coupling irons, where holes are made for 
that purpose, where one wheel has to work in the furrow ; which 
may be the case when a stetch is scarified by going on one side 
of it, and coming back on the other. 

" It is essential to have whippletrees adapted to the imple- 
ment ; if otherwise, it will fail to scarify up the foot-marks of 
the horses." 

The next implement for the purposes described, and which 
has been a long time in use, is called 



SCARIFYING, OR GRUBBING. 481 

Finlayson's Self-Cleaning Harrow. — " This is an efficient 
implement for cleaning lands under tillage from couch grass and 
other weeds ; the curvature of its teeth being so formed as to 
bring to the surface all weeds and vegetable rubbish." 




This was among the first improvements of the kind, and has 
been followed by a great many other inventions, of which I 
shall offer only two other examples. The first is, 

Kirkwood's Grubber. — " The leverage that is obtained by 
pressing on the handles or stilts of this machine, whether in action 




or at rest, is so simple, and yet so powerful in its effect, as to reg- 
ulate the depth of the tines to the greatest nicety ; or, in cases 
of obstruction, to throw them out altogether. It is an admirable 
implement, and well deserving the high commendation generally 
bestowed on it." Objections have been made, however, to the 
form of its teeth. 

The next instrument which I shall notice is called the Uley 
cultivator, and made at the iron and agricultural implement 
41 




482 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

works of the Earl of Ducie, at Uley, in Gloucestershire, and under 
the direction and management of a highly intelligent and prac- 
tical machinist, Mr. Richard Clyburn, a visit to whose establish- 
ment afforded me the highest gratification. 

The Uley Cultivator. — "No. 1 size, with 5 tines, covering 
a space of 40 inches. 

"No. 2 size, with 7 tines, covering a space of 56 inches. 

" The improvements consist, first, 
in a new method of fastening the 
tine into the frame, so as to insure 
a sufficiency of strength to the upper 
end of the tine, where the greatest 
m strength is required ; secondly, in 
making the scarifiers and grubbers 
concave on the under side, which causes them to wear to a 
sharp edge, and enter the ground better, where it is very 
hard ; thirdly, in constructing them in such a way, they can be 
made of wrought iron. 

" The frame is of cast-iron, made to receive five or seven tines, 
each tine covering a space of eight inches, and so arranged that, 
although drawing lines only eight inches apart, they are two 
feet from each other ; this, with their curved shape, and length, 
prevents its clogging in the foulest land. There are three sorts 
of points ; one, two inches wide, for grubbing up or breaking land; 
another, nine inches wide, for working stubble ; the third set has 
steel blades, and are used for paring, instead of the breast-plough : 
these points all fit the tines without pins to hold them. The 
tines are fastened into the frame with a split key and cotter ; and, 
in case of breaking, they can be taken out and others put in, as 
easy as the colter of a plough. The height of the frame from 
the ground is about two feet ; the wheels are of cast-iron, the 
front ones 1 foot 6 inches diameter, and the back ones 3 feet 4 
inches diameter. The machine is raised and lowered by turning 
a handle, the axle of which has a worm fixed on it, working into 
a wheel fixed in the crank-axle of the back wheels. This wheel 
has a projecting arm, in which a stud is fixed : to this stud is 
attached a connecting-rod, the upper end of which is connected 
to the long lever which lias its fulcrum in the centre, and is 
connected with the frame by a joint ; the other end of the lever 



GENERAL REMARKS ON THE USE OF AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 483 

is cunnected to the top of the T axle, on which the front wheels 
work. It will be seen by this arrangement that, if the handle is 
turned to the right, the machine is lifted up ; and if to the left, 
let down : this is indicated by the dial-plate on the right-hand 
side of the machine, marked in inches, in and out of the ground; 
one rotation of the handle raises or lowers the machine one 
inch." 

This instrument, wherever it has been used, has been highly 
approved. 

It will be obvious to my readers, that the object of these sev- 
eral inventions is to put the ground into a line and deep cultiva- 
tion ; and, in many cases, the scarifier will be substituted with 
great advantage for the plough. In the spring of the year, es- 
pecially, where land has been ploughed in the autumn, it would 
be most injudicious, in many cases, to reverse the sward with a 
plough, and at the same time, as the wetness of the land may 
require that it should be cultivated lightly, a harrow or scarifier 
presents the most proper implement. 

As a matter of curiosity, a Table of ingenious, exact, and 
somewhat useful calculations, in regard to the business of 
ploughing or scarifying land, will be inserted on the last page 
of this Report. 



LXXXVII. — GENERAL REMARKS ON THE USE OF AGRI- 
CULTURAL MACHINERY. 

In presenting these different examples to my readers, they will 
not expect me to recommend them, nor to mark a preference of 
one over the other. That I must leave wholly to their judg- 
ment. I have only to say that the best results are to be ex- 
pected only from the most careful and thorough cultivation; but 
with the best feelings towards those ingenious mechanics and 
artisans who have done so much to alleviate and facilitate labor, 
my own experience, and that of many friends, would lead me 
to advise to caution in the purchase of any machines whose 



484 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

Utility has not been thoroughly tested, and especially those of a 
complicated or expensive character, A machine which promises 
much may greatly disappoint us in the results. Some of the 
most complex machines perform only that which the most 
simple would accomplish with half the trouble, and it is often 
quite as difficult to manage the machine as to perform the labor. 
A machine constructed upon the most sound and philosophical 
principles requires, many times, a philosopher to guide it. Agri- 
cultural machines of a complicated nature are constantly liable 
to get out of repair, and at times when the inconvenience and 
loss, occasioned by the stoppage of the work from such acci- 
dents, are excessive. Then the conduct and management of the 
machine must go into the hands of persons who are ignorant 
and stupid ; who have a prejudice against the success of ma- 
chinery, because they erroneously suppose that it interferes with 
their labor ; who generally resist all innovations, and who but 
too often find a malicious gratification in the failure of all 
attempts at improvement. The remedies for this very common 
evil, it is not easy to determine. The first is, if possible, to give 
the laborer a direct personal interest in the success of the machine 
in use. The second is less direct, and can only be looked for in 
the future ; that is, the better education of the laboring classes, 
which shall enable them to take more just views of their own 
private interests, and understand their inseparable identity with 
all measures of general improvement, with the progress of the 
mechanic arts, by which, if labor is not abridged, production is 
greatly increased, and with the interests and welfare of every 
other class in the community. Happy will it be for the world, 
when the true principles of political economy — so well illustrated 
in the well-known Latin fable of the revolt of the limbs against 
the stomach, and as clearly in the sacred writings, when the 
apostle reminds us that " we are members one of another, and if 
one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, and if one 
member rejoices, all the members rejoice with it" — shall be every 
where understood, and, if we may dare hope for such a result, 
conscientiously applied and practised upon. 



PARTICULAR EXAMPLES OF IMPROVEMENT. 485 



LXXXVIII.— PARTICULAR EXAMPLES OF IMPROVEMENT. 

I have spoken of the preparation of the land, by cuUurc, for 
the deposit of the seed, under the heads of ploughing, subsoiling, 
paring, deep-stirring, scarifying, and harrowing ; but there were 
two processes going on, in Cornwall, of so peculiar a character 
that I deem it proper to detail them. 

1. Tehidy. — The first was at Tehidy, the residence of Lady 
Bassett, under the direction of an intelligent and accomplished 
agriculturist, a gentleman well established in the principles, and 
familiar with the practices, of agriculture, in the best cultivated 
districts of Scotland, and who was employed not merely to put 
the home-estate under a proper course of management, but, by 
example, counsel, advice, encouragement, and rewards, to assist 
and induce the tenants on the property to abandon the objection- 
able and profitless modes of husbandry which they had long 
followed, and introduce a better system, which the experience 
of the most improving and best farmers in the country had 
sanctioned. 

An extensive tract of land on the sea-coast was underlaid, 
about three inches below the surface, with a compact bed of flint 
stones, of four and six inches in depth, and might indeed be very 
properly called macadamized. Vegetation on such land was 
almost hopeless, for the mould, or vegetable matter, on the 
surface, had little depth, and no plough or cultivator could pene- 
trate this obstinate mass of stones. But this farmer undertook 
to remove with pickaxes this entire mass of stones, and had 
accomplished a considerable tract when I had the pleasure to 
visit it. The piles of stoneslayas thick, as and very much larger, 
than cocks of hay, upon the field, preparatory to their being 
carted away, for the making or repairing of roads. Under this 
la5''er of stones was found a soil which could be brought into, 
and, under proper manuring, would liberally reward, good culti- 
vation. The Cornish men, who, in the capacity of miners, are 
accustomed to face difficulties of no ordinary magnitude, and 
will march up against the brazen walls of a copper mine, where 
they may pick and hammer away for weeks and months with- 
41* 



486 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

out reward, with as much indifference as they would cut away 
upon a loaf of stale bread, performed this service with a labor 
and perseverance worthy of all praise. Under this layer of 
stones was a soil capable of productive cultivation, and the reward 
was found in the crops which were growing on a portion of the 
recovered land. After the stones were removed, the land was 
subsoiled, and a crop of turnips, manured with guano, was taken. 
The effects of guano, when the land manured by it was com- 
pared with a part of the field manured only with the ashes of 
the furze, were here most remarkable. The experiment was a 
brave, and, though labor was at a low rate, it was an expensive 
one ; but as the land was comparatively without value in its 
former state, the only question in the case was, whether the 
land, after being redeemed in this way, would be worth the 
expense of the recovery. Heavy as this expense was, the land 
became worth a great deal more than it cost. In fact, it was so 
much land literally created by the process ; and its situation, 
where it was easily accessible, greatly enhanced the value. 

2. Scobeel's Farm. — The other experiment to which 1 
referred was going on between Penzance and Land's End, on the 
farm of Colonel Scobell — a farm, in respect to parts of which 
the culture would seem like going upon a forlorn hope, the land 
presenting a most forbidding aspect ; and yet in its results 
exhibiting a conclusive test of the best husbandry, by its per- 
manent improvements, and its ample returns for the labor and 
expense bestowed upon it. 

Some parts of Cornwall — where the hospitality of the inhab- 
itants is in an inverse ratio to the quality of the soil — reminded 
me of a tract of country very well known to many persons in the 
United States, through which the turnpike-road passes between 
Lynn and Salem, in Massachusetts, which some one facetiously 
called the " abomination of desolation," and of which the British 
prisoners, in passing over it on their way to Boston, in the last 
war, demanded, with considerable emphasis, '' whether that was 

the " (here using a theological phrase, which it would 

be quite improper to repeat out of the pulpit) "country for 
which the Americans were fighting." There is this remarkable 
difierence, however, in favor of Cornwall, that, like some old 
miser, who seeks to conceal his riches under an appearance of 



PARTICULAR EXAMPLES OF IMPROVEMENT. 487 

extreme squalidiiess and destitution, it is underlaid with inex- 
haustible mineral treasures, as I myself, in a dress befitting the 
infernal regions, with a lighted torch in my hand, descending 
by the slippery rounds of a ladder seven hundred feet, and trav- 
ersing two miles under ground, had the- gratification — for so I 
may call it, since I am once more on the surface — to witness. In 
this part of the country there is little wood, and no coal, and, for 
fuel, the inhabitants pare the surface of the land, which seems 
covered with a thick matted moss and heather, and which, when 
taken off, leaves under it a mixture of white gravel, and blacky 
peaty mould. This being taken off in spots, the country resem- 
bles the face of a man reduced to a skeleton, with his skin pitted 
and blotched all over with the small-pox. It will be understood 
that I am speaking only of a part of Cornwall, and, in particular, 
the mining districts ; for in some parts there are spots of eminent 
fertility, of which the culture is singularly skilful, and the pro- 
ductiveness nowhere exceeded. 

Some of the land owned by Colonel Scobell is of the description 
of which I have spoken. He sells the moss and heather, taken 
off by, what a native American may properly call, this scalping 
process, at twenty-four pounds per acre ; and then, by deep and 
brave cultivation, and by most ample manuring, at an expense 
of ten pounds an acre, he brings this very land into productive 
cultivation. This is what, in New England, we should call 
adroitly, and, certainly, most honestly and creditably, " turning a 
penny ; " here it is evident it might be designated by a denom- 
ination two hundred and forty times larger. After this land is 
in this way brought to, it v/ould readily let at thirty or forty 
shillings per acre. After the land has been pared, his process is 
to drain, subsoil, and manure it, and then he gets excellent crops 
of turnips, barley, and wheat. 

All circumstances considered, the whole management of this 
farm seemed to me excellent, and it will not be deemed out of 
place if I now speak of it, since the subject is before me. 

The farm embraces an extent of some hundreds of acres, of a 
gravelly soil, and much of it composed of rotten and decomposed 
granite rock. It required no small resolution and courage to 
take such a tract of country in hand, with a determination to 
make its cultivation profitable ; for, though I have referred to 
some cases in which the returns from the sale of the furze and 



488 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

heather upon it were very large, it could scarcely be expected 
that such a process of profit was applicable to a large extent. 

The farm is not in what would be called '• pink style," and 
nothing is done for show. The fixtures, though very conve- 
nient, are of a plain and inexpensive character. He keeps 150 
head of neat stock ; he raises all his calves ; he fats a large 
number of swine, of which he has an excellent breed, being a 
mixture and cross of the Essex, the Neapolitan, and a boar pro- 
cured from the United States, which appeared to be a chance 
animal with excellent points. His cattle are of the improved 
Durham, which seemed not the kind best adapted to the short 
pastures of the country, and were not in good condition, having, 
as he said, suffered from the extreme drought which had pre- 
vailed during the summer, and of which it was quite evident 
the stock in all that country had felt the severity. 

His stock are kept in the house the greater part of the year, 
and fed upon steamed food. His swine are generally killed at one 
year old, and weigh from fifteen to seventeen scores of pounds : 
and when kept until two years old, he calculates them to weigh 
about thirty-five scores of pounds. He has killed those which 
weighed thirty-six score. They run in the pasture upon grass only. 
" with no meat," — that is, no grain or meal, — from April until 
October. They are then put up and fed with steamed potatoes, 
mixed with barley meal, and given to them while warm ; and 
twelve gallons of barley meal are deemed sufficient for the fattening 
of a hog. His swine, when put up for fattening, are fed several 
times a day. Indeed, the hind watches them constantly, and 
supplies them with food as often as their troughs are emptied. 

The cattle are tied in stalls with chains. Provision is made, 
by a movable trough, to let in water to them, so that they are 
not turned out except for occasional airing. The stable and 
barns are upon the side of a hill, and the cattle are kept upon a 
lower story. 

The upper part of the barn is devoted to the Avashing and 
steaming of the food ; for all of it, the chaff" as well as the vege- 
tables, are steamed for the stock. The turnips and potatoes are 
placed in a large trough or tub, directly under a full current of 
water, coming from a drained field, which falls some short dis- 
tance directly upon them, and immediately passes off, carrying 
the dirt with it. The potatoes are steamed in barrels. The 



PARTICULAR EXAMPLES OF IMPROVEMENT. 489 

barrels are suspended in an iron half hoop, and are swung back 
and forward by a crane. They turn upon a pivot, and have but 
one head in. They are easily swung round to the trough, 
where the potatoes are washed, and then filled. A movable 
bottom, full of holes, is then placed in the open head, to prevent 
the potatoes from falling out, and they are again swung round 
and dropped upon a platform, and a steam-pipe, opened by a 
cock, introduced under the bottom, which effectually steams 
them in fifteen minutes. They are then again attached to the 
lever, swung round, inverted, the movable head taken out, 
again inverted, and the cooked contents poured into a trough, 
and the barrel again filled and cooked as before ; so that, from 
the beginning to the end of the process, they can scarcely be 
said to be touched with the hand. 

The turnips, with their tops on, are dropped from the cart into 
the washing trough, and, when washed, are shoved along, and 
thrown into steaming boxes level with the floor, on which they 
are washed. These boxes have a false bottom, or grating of 
iron, under which the steam is introduced by a pipe, and, after 
being sufficiently cooked, the end of the box is dropped, and 
they are easily shovelled into a cooling box, set still lower than 
the other, for their reception. The chaff" is steamed in a large 
closet. All the hay for the cattle is cut by a machine, on an 
upper floor, and easily shovelled into this closet, where it is 
steamed by a pipe introduced from the common steam machine. 
Every thing is contrived to simplify and relieve labor. The 
food is then put into barrows, and wheeled, through the passages, 
to the different stock to be fed. The water, which comes from 
the turnips when steamed, is always saved, and, being mixed 
with a small quantity of barley meal, is given to the store hogs. 
It will ferment if left to stand, and is deemed quite nutritious. 
Gatmeal is used for the stock, when barley meal cannot be ob- 
tained, and is deemed much better. 

The potatoes and turnips are all washed, and shovelled, and 
steamed, by a single young woman, stout, healthy, active, and 
energetic, not in appearance much to my taste, as " a fine gentle- 
man," but entitled to respect for her cheerfulness and good- 
humor, and for the spirit and fidelity with which she performed 
her humble duty. Hpr master spoke of her in the kindest man- 



490 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ner, and, in looking at her in her laborious service, I could not 
help thinking of that noble line, — 

"Act Avell your part; there all the iionor lies." 

The manure of the stock is thrown into the yards. Different 
kinds are mixed, and some hogs are kept among it, who, by- 
stirring it constantly, prevent its fermentation. The liquid 
manure is all saved in tanks, and, in some cases, is, with great 
success, led over the fields. 

With the water obtained from the drainage of the land, Mr. Sco- 
bell has created a mill-power, which turns a wheel twenty-eight 
feet in diameter. With this is connected a threshing machine, a 
winnowing machine, and a flour and grain mill, for the purposes 
of the establishment ; and the same power is applied to a mill for 
crushing and sifting bones, to a chaff-cutter, and to a grindstone. 

From the situation of the ground, likewise, on the side-hill, 
Mr. Scobell is enabled to irrigate portions of his land, which he 
does with great advantage. From the rocky character of the 
country, the fences on the farm are stone walls, a very desirable 
mode of disposing of the surplus stone in the fields ; and his 
gates upon the farm are of iron, at the moderate cost of 7s. 6d. 
per gate. They appeared, however, quite too light and frail for 
endurance. 

The fixtures on the farm are of the rudest description, and no 
pretensions are made to neatness or exactness ; but every thing 
seemed well cared for ; and for economical arrangements, for 
effecting the purposes intended, for a management combining 
the lowest scale of expenditure with the highest scale of profit, 
few more successful examples have ever come under my obser- 
vation. The courageous enterprise, which could boldly face 
the obstacles to be encountered in this most inauspicious tract 
of country, would qualify a man for a much higher military 
commission than that which its proprietor had borne, and the 
sound judgment and skill which suggested and planned the 
improvements, and carried them out with such a creditable 
economy of labor, are well worthy of commendation. 



CORNWALL AND TUE LANd's END. 491 



LXXXIX. — CORNWALL AND THE LAND'S END. 

Many of the practices prevailing in Cornwall, with the modes 
of speaking, and forms of expression among the people, are so 
nearly allied to those of New England, as to satisfy me that we 
must have imported them from this part of the world, and that 
scions from Cornwall are thickly ingrafted in our pilgrim land. 
I wish we might inherit, in the fullest measure, the spirit of fuU- 
souled hospitality which I found among them. I have only to 
regret that the rules which I have prescribed to myself forbid 
my saying what I would. But the feelings of grateful and affec- 
tionate respect are not the less strong for being suppressed ; and 
my Cornwall friends, from their own generous natures, may be 
assured that my sense of their constant and disinterested kind- 
ness is all which they themselves would desire it should be. 

On this excursion into Cornwall, I went to the Land's End, 
and planted my foot on the very last rocky point, extending into 
the sea, which I was able to reach. I had but a few moments 
before passed a traveller's home, with the significant sign, " The 
First and the Last House in England." Nothing can be more 
picturesque than this rude and rock-bound shore, with its white- 
fringed ruffle of surf, as far as the eye can reach, and a few 
scattered rocks at a distance, over which the swelling waves 
were profusely pouring their showers of diamonds, so treacherous 
to the home-bound mariner, so picturesque and beautiful to the 
landsman, as he suns himself upon the grassy shore, watching 
the distant sails scattered upon the wide expanse, full-freighted 
with human life and hopes, glittering in the sunlight, and float- 
ing like water-fowl in their native element. 

As I stood upon the far -jutting point of the promontory, and 
felt that no intervening country separated me from the land of 
my birth, and the home of what is most dear to me, I found my 
head growing dizzy, my heart beating as though it were strug- 
gling to get out, and my cheeks quite wet, perhaps with the 
spray ; and I could only find relief in sending a thousand un- 
spoken messages of affection, and in more earnest prayers for the 
prosperity of the land, and the loved ones whom I had left 
behind. May the winds waft the former to their objects, and 
the last find a response in heaven ! 



492 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



TABLE, 

By John Morton, 

iS/ioiving the Distance travelled by a Horse, in ploughing or scarifying an Acre 
of Land ; also the (Quantity of Land worked in a Day, at the Rate of sixteen 
and eighteen Miles per Day of nine Hours. — [Johnson and Shaiv's Farmer's 
Almanac, vol. i. p. 191.) 



Breadth of 
Furrow-slice 
or Scarifier. 


Space trav- 
elled in 
ploughing an 
Acre. 


Extent ploughed per 
Day, at the Rate of 


Breadth of 
Furrow-slice 
or Scarifier. 


Space trav- 
elled in 
ploughing an 
Acre. 


Extent ploughed jwr 
Day, at the Rate of 


Inches. 


Miks. 


18 Miles. 1 16 Miles, 
.^cres. 


Inches. 


Miles. 


18 Miles. 1 16 Miles. 
Acres. 


7 


m 


H 


u 


34 


O 9 

'-Tff 


Oi 


5^ 


8 


12i 


U 


n 


35 


04 


6* 


5| 


9 


11 


n 


u 


36 


2f 


6x 


5| 


10 


Q 9 


n 


n 


37 


2§ 


6f 


6 


11 


9 


o 


If 


38 


2i- 


6/^ 


6i 


12 


8|- 


2i 


It^^t 


39 


2^ 


7i 


61 


13 


^ 


2i 


2^ 


40 


2i 


7^ 


6^ 


14 


7 


2i 


2i 


41 


2S- 


7^ 


6t 


15 


^ 


n 


02 


42 


n 


7f 


6f 


16 


H 


2A 


n 


43 


^2% 


n 


7 


17 


5f 


3tV 


2f 


44 


n 


8 


Vo 


18 


5k 


3i 


2A 


45 


n 


8i 


7i 


19 


o-l 


3^ 


3A 


46 


n 


8* 


7f 


20 


4A 


3f 


3i 


47 


2tV 


8§ 


7f 


21 


4tV 


3| 


3^ 


48 


2tV 


8f 


7f 


22 


U 


4 


3^ 


49 


o 


8A 


7A 


23 


4 


H 


3tV 


50 


o 


9tV 


8tV 


24 


H 


H 


3t^o 


51 


lA 


9f 


8i 


25 


4 


H 


4 


52 


lA 


94 


8| 


26 


3| 


n 


H 


53 


lA 


9f 


81 


27 


n 


4^ 


H 


54 


If 


9f 


8t^^ 


28 


^ 


5^ 


H 


55 


H 


10 


9 


29 


^ 


5i 


4f 


56 


If 


lOi 


9 


30 


H 


5f 


H 


57 


If 


lOf 


n 


31 


H 


5f 


5 


58 


ly^ 


lOf 


n 


32 


3tV 


^5 


5i 


59 


IxV 


lOf 


9.i 


33 


3 


6 


5* 


60 


H 


lOA 


9>^ 



END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 



AND 



RURAL ECONOMY 



FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATION 



HENRY COLMAN, 



HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, OF THE 

NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF FRANCE, AND OF THE NATIONAL 

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



" For, in all things whatever, the mind is the most valuable and the most important ; 
and in this scale the whole of agriculture is in a natural and just order; the beast is an 
informing principle to the plough and cart, the laborer is as reason to the beast, and the 
farmer is as a thinking and presiding principle to the laborer." — Burke. 



YOL. II. 



FOURTH EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. 



BOSTON: 
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY. 

NEW YORK ; CHARLES M. SAXTON. PHILADELPHIA : THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT 
& CO. BALTIMORE : CUSHING & BROTHER. CHARLESTON, S. C: 
m'cARTER k ALLEN. CINCINNATI : H. W. DERBY 
& CO. BUFFALO : G. H. DERBY & CO. 

1851. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year IM9, by 

HENRY COL MAN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED AT THE 
BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 



WIUGHT AND HASTY S STEAM PRESS. 



INDEX, 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



VOL. II. 



SIXTH REPORT. 

PAGE. 

Preliminary Observations xi 

XC. Paring and Burning 1 

XCI. Burning Land 9 

XCII. Admixture of Soils 21 

XCIII. Improvement of Peat Lands 30 

1. Drainage 35 

2. Pai-ing and Burning 38 

3. Application of Lime 39 

4. Rules in Ireland for Redemption of Bog 41 

5. Application of Gravel or Sand 41 

6. Application of Clay or Marl 42 

7. Application of Mud or Loam 45 

8. Improvement of Chat-Moss 47 

9. Depth of Ploughing on Peat Soils 49 

10. Manures for Peat 50 

11. Cropping of Peat Lands 51 

,XCIV. Warping 54 

XCV. An Experiment 60 

XCVI. Straightening a River 61 

XCVn. Work in Ireland 62 

XCVIII. Drainage 63 

1. The Importance of Drainage 63 

2. Extent of Drainage, and Embanlonent against the Sea 65 

3. The Ancholme Drainage GQ 

4. Embankments against a River, and Discharge of Water 

by Steam-Engines 68 

5. The Deeping Fen 69 

6. The Muston Drainage, 69 

7. Drainage at Scampton 70 



IV INDEX. 

PAGE 

8. Drainage in Nottinghamshire 73 

9. Drainage at Wiseton 74 

10. Grandeur and Value of these Improvements 75 

11. Relation of these Improvements to the United States 75 

XCIX. The Drainage of Farms 76 

1. Climate, and Condition of the Soil 76 

2. Modes of Draining. Open Ditches. Covered Drains 77 

3. Elkington's System of Drainage 78 

4. Draining with Fagots and Straw 79 

5. Plug Draining 79 

6. Draining with Turf Covering 81 

7. Draining by the Mole Plough 82 

8. Suffolk Draining 83 

9. Draining in Berkshire 84 

10. Scotch Draining Plough 85 

11. Draining with Broken Stones 87 

12. Thorough Draining, or Deanstonizing 88 

13. Implements for Draining 96 

C. National Characteristics. — A Digression 98 

CI. Tile and Pipe Draining 99 

1. Improvements in Form of Draining-Pipes 99 

2. Important Points in Draining. 101 

3. Results and Experience in Pipe Draining. — Depth of 

Drains 101 



SEVENTH REPORT. 

CI. Tile and Pipe Draining, (continued.) 105 

4. Size of Pipes 106 

5. The Philosophy of Draining 108 

6. Magnificent Agricultural Improvements, and their Moral 

Results Ill 

7. Soils to be drained 1 13 

8. Association for Drainage 115 

9. The Process of Draining 116 

10. Examples of Drainage in Ireland 118 

CII. Subsoil Ploughing connected with Thorough Draining 125 

1. Results of Subsoiling and Draining 126 

2. Failures in Subsoiling in Adhesive and Heavy Soils 126 

3. Success in Subsoiling Sandy and Light Lands 128 

4. Success of Subsoiling on Thin, Peaty Ground 132 

5. Importance of Subsoiling and Draining, and their Applica- 

tion to the United States 133 

6. Objections to this Improvement 133 

7. Read's Subsoil Pulverizer 135 



INDEX. V 

PAGE. 

cm. Irrigation 138 

1. Theory of Irrigation 138 

2. General Principles and Directions for Irrigation 140 

3. Welbeck, Nottinghamshire 147 

4. Teddesley, Staffordshire 154 

5. Audley End, Essex 15G 

6. Somersetshire 157 

7. Edinburgh 159 

8. Willesden, Middlesex 161 

CIV. The Rotation of Crops 170 

CV. Soiling, or House Feeding 180 

CVI. Crops 203 

1. Wheat 203 



EIGHTH REPORT. 

CVI, Crops, (continued.) 223 

1. Wheat, (continued.) 223 

2. Oats 244 

3. Barley 247 

4. Rye 248 

5. Beans 249 

6. Peas 250 

7. Vetches or Tares 251 

8. Turnips 252 

9. Potatoes, Beets, Carrots, Parsnips 257 

10. Cabbages 2G1 

11. Rape 260 

12. Mustard 267 

13. Chiccory 268 

14. Lucern 268 

15. Sainfoin 270 

16. Crunson Clover, {Tiifolium Incamcdum.) 272 

17. Whin, Furze, or Gorse, [Ulex Europcsus.) 272 

18. Clovers and Grasses 276 

19. Rye Grass 281 

20. Orchard Grass, or Cocksfoot, [Dactylis Glomerala.) 282 

21. Bokhara or Tree Clover 282 

22. Rib Grass, or Plantain 283 

23. Red Top, Herds-Grass 283 

24. Millet , 284 

25. Sowing Grass Seed 284 

26. Hops 286 

CVII. Flax 292 

1 General Views "Ht^ 

a* 



VI INDEX. 

PACE. 

2. Soil, and Preparation of tlie Soil 294 

3. Seed and Sowing 294 

4. Weeding 295 

5. Pulling 295 

6. Rippling 296 

7. Steeping. 296 

8. The Courtray Method 298 

9. Breaking and Scutcliing 298 

10. Uses of tlie Seed 299 

11. Mr. Warne's Metliod 300 

12. Average Produce, and Uses of the Produce 302 

CVIII. Live Stock 303 

1. Horses , 307 

2. Neat Cattle 312 

(1.) The Improved Short Horns 313 

(2.) Herefords 314 

(3.) The Dcvons 315 

(4.) The Aj/rshirc 317 

(5.) The West Highland Cattle, or Kyloes 318 

(6.) Tlic Aberdeenshire Polled Cattle 318 

(7.) The Alderney or Guernsey Cattle 319 

(8.) Dairy or Miking Stock 320 

(9.) Improvements in Relation to the United States 329 

3. Sheep 331 

(1.) Various Breeds 332 

(2.) Cheviot and HigJdand Sheep 334 

(3.) Leicester Sheep 335 

(4.) SotUh Doion Sheep 336 

(5.) General Management of Sheep 344 

4. Swine 346 

CIX. Dairy Husbandry 347 

1. Butter. 347 

2. Cheese 349 

(1.) Stilton Cheese 350 

(2.) Improved Stilton Cheese 351 

(3.) Cheshire Cheese 353 

ex. Manures 357 

1. Guano 358 

2. The Nitrates 359 

3. Soot 359 

4. Woollen Rags 360 

5. Lime. . . . .' 360 

6. Sea-Sand 362 

7. Super-phosphate of Lime 363 

8. Fibrous Covering, or Gurneyism 366 

CXL General Reflections 368 



INDEX. 



VII 



CXII. 
CXIII. 
CXIV. 

cxv. 

CXVI. 
CXVII. 
CXVIII. 

CXIX. 



CXX. 



CXXI. 



CXXII. 
CXXIII. 
CXXIV. 

cxxv. 



CXXVI. 



NINTH REPORT. 

PAGE. 

French Agriculture 371 

Soil and Aspect 371 

Crops 373 

The Forests of France 373 

A French Landscape 375 

The French Peasantry 375 

Size of Farms and Division of Property 377 

Measures of the Government for the Improvement of Agri- 
culture 387 

1. Department of Agriculture 387 

2. Statistical Returns 387 

3. Inspectors of Agricultural Districts 388 

4. Importation of Improved Stock 388 

5. Agricultural and Veterinary Schools 388 

(5. Agricultural Societies and Show 389 

7. An Agricultural Congress 389 

8. Conservatory of Arts and Trades 389 

9. Society for the Improvement of Wool 390 

Paris Markets 390 

1. Corn Market 390 

2. Meat Markets 391 

3. Markets for Eggs, Butter, Cheese, Vegetables, Fruits, 

Poultry, Fish, &c 391 

4. Market for Forage 392 

5. Horse Market 393 

6. Flower Markets 393 

The Culture of Flowers. — Botany 394 

1. The Floral Magnificence of England 397 

2. The Flower Gardens of Paris. — The Garden of Plants 398 

3. The Gardens of the Palaces 399 

4. Rural Embellishments in France, Holland, Belgium, Ger- 

many, and Italy 399 

Abattoirs, or Slaughtering Houses 406 

The Filth of Paris 410 

Night Soil. Poudrette 414 

Agricultural Education 419 

1. School at Grignon 419 

2. Veterinary School at Alfort 43G 

3. Agricultural Colony at Mettray 440 

4. Colony at Petit Bourg 443 

Crops 446 

1. Wheat 446 

2. Spelt 468 

3. Rye 469 

4. Barley 472 

5. Oats 475 

6. Meslin, or M6teil 477 



Vlll 



INDEX. 

PAGE. 

7. Maize, or Indian Corn 477 

8. Buckwheat 479 

9. Millet 479 

10. Clover 479 



TENTH REPORT. 



CXXVI. Crops, (continued.) 481 

11. Lucern 481 

12. Sainfoin 482 

13. Beets. — Beets for Sugar 482 

14. Silk 488 

15. The Vine 496 

16. Olives 499 

CXXVII, General Views of French Agriculture 501 

CXXVIII. Farm near Versailles 502 

CXXIX. Farm Accounts 503 

CXXX. Agriculture of Belgium and Holland 506 

CXXXI. The Soil 507 

CXXXn. The Dikes and Polders 507 

CXXXIII. The Water Machinery or Mills 510 

CXXXIV. Flemish Agriculture 51] 

CXXXV. The Soil ; and Size of Farms 513 

CXXXVI. The Cultivation of tlie Soil, Trenching, Ploughing, Ma- 
nuring 513 

1. Deep Cultivation 513 

2. Subsoiling 514 

3. Draining 515 

4. Mixing the Soil 516 

5. Rotation of Crops 516 

6. Manuring 518 

7. Liquid Manure 519 

8. Cleanness of Cultivation 521 

CXXXVn. Manures 522 

1. Mineral Manures 522 

2. Vegetable Manures 523 

3. Animal Manures 525 

4. Liquid Manures, and Means of saving them 52f) 

5. Compost Heaps, 531 

6. Jauffret's Manure 532 

7- General Remarks on Manures 533 

CXXXVIII. Crops 534 

1. Colza 534 

2. Navette 537 

3. Poppy 537 



INDEX. IX 

4. Camcline 538 

5. White Mustard 539 

6. Flax 539 

7. Hemp 544 

8. Tobacco 547 

9. Hops 549 

10. Madder 550' 

11. Woad 551 

12. Weld 552 

13. Carrots 553 

CXXXIX. Implements of Husbandry 554 

CXL. Spade Husbandry 557 

CXLI. Live Stock 5fi0 

1. Oxen and Cows 5(11 

2. Goats 5(>3 

3. Asses 564 

4. Horses 564 

5. Swine 566 

6. Sheep 566 

CXLII. Dairies 567 

CXLIII. Farm-houses 570 

CXLIV. Swiss Farming. 571 

CXLV. Hofwyl. Irrigation 572 

CXLVI. Lodi's Benevolent Establishment 574 

CXLVII. Institution for reclaiming Vicious Children 576 

CXLVIII. Condition of tlie Poor and Laboring Classes 576 

CXLIX. Important Practical Conclusions 581 

1. Thorough Draining and Deep Cultivation 581 

2. Manures 581 

3. Soiling of Cattle 581 

4. Improvement of Live Stock 582 

5. Improved Articles of Culture 582 

6. New Articles of Culture 583 

Appendix — I. II. Select Farms 587 



STEEL ENGRAVINGS. 



Three South Down Wethers Fronting title page to second volume. 

Three South Down Rams Frontispiece to Seventh Report. 

A Leicester Ram do Eighth Report. 

Three new Leicester Wethers do Ninth Report. 

A Boar do Tenth Report 



X INDEX. 

WOOD CUTS. 

PAGE. 

Plans of Draining at Scampton 71, 72 

Water-wheel used for Draining 73 

Wooden Blocks used in Draining. 80 

Draining with Turf Covering 81 

Mole Plough 82 

Scoop, and Narrow Spade 83 

M'Ewan's Draining Plough 85 

Draining with Broken Stones 87 

Transverse Section of Drains, &c 91 

Transverse Section of Drains, &c., with Sketches of Implements used in 

their Formation 97 

Plan of the Thorough Draining on Part of the Townland of Carnesure 120 

Sub-pulverizer 13G 

Plan of a Part of the Irrigated Meadows in the County of Nottingham 149 

An Elevation of a Shuttle or Gate, for the Regulation of the Passage of 

Water. . 150 

Seam Presser 213 

Crosskill's Patent Clod-crusher 214 

Garrett's Patent Horse-hoe 223 

Garrett's Patent Drill for General Purposes 225 

An Implement for Dibbling 229 

Sheaf of Rye Grass 281 

Curd-breaker 351 

Agricultural Colony at Mettray 441 

Sketcli of the Polder of Snaerskerke 508 

Three Watering Carts for Liquid Manure 520 

Watering Machine for Small Farms 521 

Plan of Urine Cistern 530 

Walloon Plough 555 

Common Flemish Plough 556 

Mouldebart 556 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



Agriculture is the first and most important of all arts. Though not more 
honorable nor more innocent than many other arts and professions, yet it is per- 
fectly innocent, and is as honorable as any. That likewise may be said of it 
which can be said of few others, — it is essential to human subsistence. We 
shall find few persons in the community who do not at once assent to this ; but 
often the assent is merely formal, and is not that deep and established conviction 
which should, much more than it does, prevail throughout the community ; and 
especially amongst those who, gifted either by talents or station, have most con- 
cern in moulding human destinies, and in adjusting the interests and forming 
the condition of society. 

The aifecting and extraordinary events of the last two years should have their 
due influence upon every reflecting mind. In a single country, by the loss of a 
single crop, at least five hundred thousand persons have perished, amidst the 
accumulated horrors of starvation, or the diseases engendered and aggravated by 
famine. Ireland has its millions of fertile acres untilled, and its millions of 
strong hands unemployed. Had the agriculture of Ireland been what it should 
be, this terrible event — and one more terrible does not darken the pages of 
history — could not in all human probability have happened. 

The essential ciiaracter of the agricultural art is constantly pressing itself 
upon our attention. I have had from my childhood an inclination for rural pur- 
suits. I have followed the plough many a day, with a freedom and a buoyancy 
of spirit which seemed to have no counterpart but among tlie winged denizens 
of the air, who hovered around me, and with their thrilling notes cheered me on 
my way, and made the woods echo with their melody. I have cast the dry seed 
into the teeming earth, and watched its first bursting above the ground, and its 
gradual progress to maturity, recompensing every grateful attention bestowed 
upon it, until it poured its ripened treasures into my lap, with a grateful, and, I 
may add without presumption, a religious elevation of soul, which no language 
could adequately express. 



Xll PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

We may be told that agriculture is a purely material and sensual art, and 
does not deserve a place among the humane arts. To a mind material and 
sensual in all its habits, every thing becomes material and sensual in the lowest 
and most degrading sense of those terms. But its rational pursuit is not incom- 
patible with high intellectual attainments and the most refined taste. Whatever 
occupies and absorbs the mind exclusively, is, of course, unfavorable to any 
great excellence in other pursuits. Agriculture, pursued as a mere branch of 
trade or commerce, or a mere instrument of wealth, will be found to have influ- 
ences upon the mind, narrowing and restricting its operations and aspirations, 
corresponding witli any other of the pursuits of mere avarice and acquisition, 
and which even those of the learned professions, when pursued wholly with 
such views, are sure to have. But when followed without exclusive views to 
mere gain or profit, it is far from being incompatible with a high state of intel- 
lectual cultivation. Many of the sciences are the handmaids of agriculture, 
and serve as well as ennoble it. Its practical pursuit, though it occupies, yet 
it does not exhaust the mind ; but, within certain limits, inspirits and invigorates 
all its faculties. A spiritual mind may spiritualize all its operations ; a religious 
mind sees, in its wonderful and curious processes and tlieir marvellous results, 
many of the adorable miracles of a beneficent Providence. That a profound 
study of the agricultural art, and an intimate acquaintance and familiarity with 
its practical details, are not incompatible with a high degree of intellectual im- 
provement and cultivation, we have too many living examples of this union to 
leave us to doubt ; and the immortal names of Cicero, Bacon, and Washington, 
show, from their own assertions, that minds highly gifted of Heaven have found 
their richest pleasures in rural and agricultural occupations and pursuits ; and in 
company with many others, in ancient and modern times, form a magnificent 
constellation of learning, genius, and taste, shedding their splendor upon this 
useful art. 

When I hear this art spoken of with a sort of disdain, as wholly sensual and 
materia], I would ask. What is there with which man has to do whicli is not 
material and sensual ? All his organs of perception are material and sensual ; 
all of tliat which he calls purely intellectual or spiritual, without the power of 
giving any intelligible definition of what he intends by it, is directly connected 
with, moved by, controlled by, and dependent upon, his physical organization; 
and is vigorous as that is vigorous ; healthy only as that is healthy ; lives only 
by being well fed and well cared for. Even the pious clergy, who caution us 
so strongly against secular pursuits, and against seeking things earthly and tem- 
poral, without the labors of the husbandman, without beef and bread, witliout 
wool and silk, without milk and honey, since manna has ceased to come down 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XUl 

from heaven by nirjht, and the rock no longer pours forth its crystal treasures at 
the touch of the prophet's wand, could give us neither their prayers nor their 
exhortations ; the pious hands could not be raised to Heaven for its benediction, 
and tlie eloquent lips would become dumb. 

I believe the agricultural profession is highly favorable to good morals ; I 
shall not presume to say more so tlian any other ; but it will not be too much 
to say more so than many others. Perhaps it will be said, that the agricultural 
districts of England and other countries yield their full proportion of crime. I 
will not peremptorily deny what is often confidently asserted ; but I am not 
ready to concede to it until other proof than I have yet received is furnished. 
As far as my own personal observation and experience go, my conviction is tlie 
reverse of this. Two fruitful sources of crime are to be found in excited pas- 
sions and in powerful temptations. Agricultural occupations, so far from ex- 
citing, tend to exhaust and allay the passions ; and the retirement and seclusion 
of the country present fewer temptations than the tumultuous life, the oppor- 
tunities for vicious association, the disorderly hours, and the infinite variety of 
attractions and engagements of city life. Among, however, a degraded popu- 
lation, poor and half-fed, without education, Avithout any interest in the soil, 
without friends to take an interest in their welfare, without any sentiment of 
the value of character, without self-respect, accustomed to pass their unoccupied 
time in drinking-houses and in degrading pleasures, and treated and lodged 
without distinction of sex, and without any regard to the common decencies of 
life, it is not surprising to find a nursery and hot-bed of crime, where it shoots 
up in startling luxuriance. My acquaintance with many of the villages and 
rural districts of England and Scotland satisfies me that the favorable moral influ- 
ences which might be looked for from rural life and agricultural pursuits, are 
there found in full operation ; and under a system of more general and improved 
education, and especially under institutions which would give those encourage- 
ments to labor which are the most powerful motives, as well as the proper 
rewards of industry and good conduct, these influences might be expected to be 
even more general. 

Let me speak of a district or country with which I have been many years 
familiar:* it is a purely agricultural district; it contains about three hundred 
thousand inhabitants ; its climate is cold and severe ; its soil, with some excep- 
tions, of moderate fertility, and requiring the brave and strong hand of toil to 
make it productive. It has public and free schools in every town and parish, and 
several seminaries of learning of a higher character, and where the branches of a 



* The State of Vermont, United States. 
VOL. II. b 



XIV PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

useful and literary education are taught, at an expense so moderate, that it is 
placed within the reach of persons even of the most humble means. It has 
every where places of religious worship, of such a variety that every man may 
follow the dictates of his own conscience, where religious services are always 
maintained with intelligence and decorum, sustained wholly by voluntary con- 
tributions ; and sects of the most discordant opinions live in perfect harmony, 
recognizing in their mutual dependence the strongest grounds for mutual for- 
bearance and kindness. Taken as a community, they are the best-informed 
people I have known; and they have numerous and well-chosen circulating 
libraries in almost every town. They have no connection with any large mar- 
ket ; and the produce which they have for sale goes through intermediate hands 
to the great marts. They have few or no poor, and those only the emigrants 
who may stroll there from neighboring provinces. The sobriety of the people 
is remarkable ; they are every where a well-dressed people ; their houses abound 
in all the substantial comforts and luxuries of life; and their hospitality is un- 
bounded. They understand their rights and their duties, and have often dis- 
tinguished themselves by an extraordinary bravery and manliness in their 
vindication and defence. No where is public order more maintained, or public 
peace better preserved ; large portions of the inhabitants never bolt a door, nor 
fasten a window, at night; and in a village of some thousand inhabitants, I have 
known a garden stored with delicious fruit, with no other fence than one which 
served as a protection against cattle, as entirely secure from intrusioii or plunder, 
as if it had been surrounded even witli a prison-wall bristled with chevaux-de- 
frise. In this state crimes are comparatively rare; courts of penal justice have 
little occupation ; tlie prisons are often without a tenant, and tliere has been 
scarcely a public execution for half a century. From such an example of a 
community almost exclusively agricultural, I have a right to claim for agricul- 
tural and rural life all tlie beneficial moral and social influences to which its 
enthusiastic admirers pretend. 

The present excited state of tlie civilized world ought more than ever to call 
the attention of philanthropic individuals and of governments to the immense 
importance of agriculture. I have been in France during the exciting scenes of 
a political revolution, in whicli I have seen very many thousands of workmen with- 
out the means of support from their labor, and large bodies of them actually depend- 
tjnt upon public charity for their daily bread. It is not the dangers to public 
liberty and order, growing out of such large unemployed and destitute multi- 
tudes, which so much disturb me, as the actual suffering to which tliey are 
exposed, and the melancholy future that lies before them. In London I have 
encountered, with an extreme depression of heart, thousands of squalid, ragged, 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XV 

miserable poor, witliout resource but from crime or charity. A distinguished 
manufiicturer in one of the most industrious counties in England, states that 
there are at least five hundred thousand operatives without employment, and 
many on the borders of starvation : tradesmen and professional men will tell you 
that every trade and profession is overstocked ; and one is daily saluted with 
the melancholy, not to say presumptuous exclamation, that there are too many 
people. This reminds one of the sad shipwreck of the French frigate, the 
Alceste, when many of the wretched survivors, who were floating upon a raft 
composed of fragments of the ship, deemed it necessary to their own safety to 
drive by force a large portion of their suffering companions into tlie sea — 
a sad and horrible alternative. 

It would be more than absurd in me to attempt to prescribe a remedy for evils 
upon which so many sagacious heads and philanthropic hearts have concentrated 
without success their powerful energies. But I will point out what I deem the 
true cause of this great evil, and leave to wiser minds to suggest a cure. One 
thing is certain ; as matters go on, the evil must extend itself, and become every 
day more aggravated and terrible, unless some remedy is devised. The reme- 
dies for the wretched, or, if not wretched, the unfortunate condition of the labor- 
ing classes, which have been proposed in Paris by men whose good intentions I 
would not distrust, and which have been so fully and publicly discussed, are 
absurd, impracticable, and mischievous. The interference of government in 
limiting or fixing the hours of adult labor ; in attempting to establish a rate of 
wages irrespective of the time employed ; in proposing to equalize the wages of 
all trades, and determining the same rate for the skilled and the unskilled, the 
active and tlie indolent ; tlie proposition to furnish the unemployed with work at 
the national expense, and to destroy private competition by the establishment 
of national workshops, — are all of them attempts which are sure to defeat them- 
selves, and which are as impracticable for the end which they propose, as to 
attempt to chain the wind, or to stop the flowing of tlie tide. None of them 
touch the true cause of the evil. 

Must we affirm, tlien, that tliere are too many people in the world.' and that 
thousands and millions are born into it for whom there is no place at the table 
of a beneficent Providence ? Why, in France there are more tlian nineteen 
millions of untilled and unoccupied acres, and in England more tlian eight mil- 
lions, all capable of yielding food and clotliing to countless human beings; and 
here and in other lands there are millions of acres, for the want of labor wJiich 
might be applied, that produce not a moiety of what they might be made to 
produce. In ancient Rome, seven acres were the ordinaiy size of farms on 
which a family might be sustained. In Flanders, on a soil which was ones 



XVI PKELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

sterile, but which human labor has made productive, two and a half acres will 
give ample support for a man and wife and three children, or what is considered 
equal to three grown-up men and a half; and add to it three acres more, which 
this amount of labor is more than sufficient to cultivate, and you add a consid- 
erable surplus for other purposes. 

The great cause, then, of the evils complained of, is, that the cultivation of 
the earth is deserted ; and that such innumerable multitudes pour into cities and 
towns, and, filling every profession and every mechanical art and trade, destroy 
each other by a competition in articles of which the demand is necessarily lim- 
ited. There may be too many physicians, too many lawyers, and too many 
ministers, for them all to get a sufficient and an honest living ; and too many 
hatters, and too many printers, and too many shop-keepers ; for, besides that 
these persons furnish more of a particular article or service than the community 
require, tlieir work is in general only formal ; they only manufacture, — they do 
not produce ; they do not, like the grower of bread and of clothing, create that 
which may be said to have a substantial and permanent value. For when was 
the time when there was too great an abundance of the materials — I mean par- 
ticularly of those which can be kept from year to year — for food and clothing, 
for human subsistence and comfort ? As long as this state of things continues, 
there must be misery in tlie community ; as the population increases, this misery 
must increase. 

In cities, money becomes tlie standard of prosperity. Wages are paid in 
money ; money is the instrument of subsistence, of gain, and of pleasure. 
Avarice, under these circumstances, becomes stimulated to excess, and often 
leads to crime. Men's happiness becomes dependent upon that which has no 
intrinsic, but only an arbitrary value, — a value which is always capricious, and 
continually changing. If men could be induced to cultivate the earth, and, 
trained to the simple habits of laborious and rural life, be satisfied with what 
that affords them; if they would measure their prosperity and wealth, not by so 
many shining pieces of gold or silver, which they have hoarded in their closets, 
but by the produce of their labor in bread and clothing, and the various and 
innumerable simple luxuries of life, with which a kind Providence so often 
blesses the labors even of the most humble, how changed would be their condi- 
tion ! If they could be as well satisfied to breathe the fresh air of their native 
mountains and forests as the coiTupt and pestilential atmosphere of crowded 
streets and confined dwellings, from which both sun and light are shut out ; as 
well content to enjoy the simple and healthful sports of the country, as the ex- 
citing and exhausting pleasuresof city life; if their taste could be bettor satisfied 
to contemplate the verdant fields, waving witli crops or enamelled witli flowers, 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XVII 

than carpeted and gilded halls; if tliey could be taught to prefer skies painted 
with clouds of brilliant hues, and studded with stars whose lustre never grows 
dim, to palaces blazing with artificial lustres and adorned with tlie far inferior 
magnificence of man's genius and taste ; if, indeed, by any possible means, you 
could induce men and women, and, above all, the young, to love the country ; 
if, in a word, you could keep them in the country by an attachment to its simple 
labors and recreations, and prevent their crowding cities to repletion, and thas 
destroying by competition the ordinary professions and trades which prevail 
tliere, where so many vigorous young men, and so many fair and blooming 
maidens rush in, like flies in a summer evening into a blazing taper, to find too 
often the grave of their health, hopes, happiness, and virtue, — what an immense 
gain would be achieved for morals and for humanity ! 

But while matters continue otherwise, while such millions of acres remain 
unoccupied, while such thousands upon thousands crowd into the learned pro- 
fessions, and into the mechanical arts and trades, and fill cities to repletion, 
under the powerful stimulus of a vain ambition, an inordinate avarice, or a love 
of excitement, luxury, and pleasure as inordinate and unrestrained, we shall 
continue to complain of a superabundance of population ; and that superabun- 
dance, wherever tlie wave accumulates, will bring Avith it crime and misery. 
The decrees of Divine Providence cannot be violated with impunity. Every 
inordinate and unrestrained passion will yield its bitter fruits. Every infraction 
of the laws of man's moral constitution will be followed with its just and inevita- 
ble penalty. 

To my mind, then, the great causes of the evils of which society, especially 
in the old countries of Europe, is every where complaining, are primarily those 
which are now pointed out, — an excessive crowding of the professions, trades, 
and mechanic arts, creating a most baneful competition, and an entirely false 
assumption, which every where fixes itself in men's minds, that pecuniary wealth 
is the true standard of prosperity. Competition, which, when excessive, is so 
hurtful and serious in the mechanic arts ar d trades, : s, .'n agriculture, always a 
good. Under proper management the earth cannot be made to produce too 
much. It is a generally received theory, that as yet there has ueen no suir. i3 
produce ; that what is grown in one year is, upon an average, only sufficient ior 
that year; and tliat one year's entire failure of the crops would cause tlie 
destruction of the human race. I shall not speculate upon this theory, wliich, 
possibly, may be well founded, but which Heaven forbid that it should bo put 
soon to experiment. In some years there may be a surplus of some products, 
and then there may be a dearth of others. But I have never known too much 
grown : 1 have never knoAvn the great mass of mankind enjoying too much bread, 

6* 



XVin PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

or too much clothing, or too many of the substantial comforts of life. If tliey 
get the comforts, or their substantial necessities are supplied, then certainly we 
should desire that tliey should have the luxuries of life in addition, — above all, 
those simple luxuries which are the produce of their own honest labor, and to 
which that circumstance alone will always give a peculiar zest. 

Can any thing be done to remedy or abate this great evil, and to turn aside 
this rushing current, Avhich threatens to accumulate in such masses of frightful 
misery ? This is a great inquiry for tlie philanthropist, and for all governments 
which have at heart the only proper object of government, that is, the welfare 
of the governed. The Divine Providence often punishes human cupidity and 
madness by its judgments ; but war, disease, famine, and floods, which sweep 
away their tens and hundreds of thousands, are dreadful curatives. They seem 
only temporary in their operation. They lay waste instead of fertilizing. They 
make man's heart sink witliin him ; and they leave behind them nothing con- 
solatory or hopeful. No reflecting mind, at least no mind with any experience 
of human life, will suppose for a moment that any eSectual remedy can be at 
once discovered or applied. It is only the madness, or enthusiasm, if the milder 
terra is more fitting, of a French revolutionist, which dreams that the whole form 
and relations of society can be suddenly changed, and that the next morning's 
sun shall rise upon a cloudless sky, bringing back the golden age, dispelling all 
the fogs and mists of night, drying up all tlie sources of human misery, and 
pouring out a flood of xmiversal peace, plenty, and happiness. 

While human weakness and passions remain what they are, no complete 
remedy is ever to be even hoped for. It does not yet appear tliat Heaven designed 
that man should realize an optimism in this world. To our humble views it 
seems to be the aim of Divine Providence, by the limitations, uncertainties, 
imperfections, and trials of this state, to stimulate a virtuous ambition, and to 
arouse the minds of the well-disposed to all possible exertion to ameliorate the 
condition of their fellow-men. There is one great encouragement to every phil- 
antliropic attempt. Little as any individual, or any combination of individuals, 
can effect, yet I believe truly that no benevolent exertion, however humble, ever 
failed to produce some good ; and experience constantly shows that seed, which 
has been cast into the ground, may lie long concealed, may not show itself above 
the surface even during the lifetime of those who planted it, to gladden their 
eyes, yet it may yield, though a late, an ample harvest. 

Every one knows the power of public opinion, and how all the world are influ- 
enced by fashion, or what is called general sentiment. I have heard of a man 
who was asked, as is common on leaving church, " how he liked the preacher." 
His honest reply was, that " he did not know ; he had not heard any body 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XIX 

say." This liomely anecdote illustrates a striking element in the human char- 
acter, and shows how much our judgments, and consequently our actions to 
a certain extent, depend upon the rank which most things hold in public 
estimation. 

I wisli to see an agricultural life, much more than it is, the choice of men of 
fortune, of influence, of talents, occupying the higher positions in society; and 
this, not as mere dilettanti or amateurs, but as plain, active, practical husband- 
men ; men, not merely to come on deck in some fine sunshiny day, to admire 
the ship witli all her canvass filled, and all her streamers flying, as a beautiful 
object of art, and, in a spasm of poetical fi-enzy, to enjoy the deep green of the 
ocean, and its graceful undulations, and its ruffied waves ; but who understand 
perfectly the art of navigation, who " know every rope in the ship," the nature 
and stowage of tlie cargo, and the place and duties of every man in the 
company. 

I have devoted weeks, and months, and years, in my humble way, to recom- 
mend this noble art, to vindicate its claims to the attention of those who have 
at heart their own and the welfare of the community, to show tliat it is a source, 
if not of large, yet of reasonable profits ; that as an occupation it is as honorable 
as it is useful ; that it conduces to health of body and peace of mind ; that rural 
pleasures are, to a well-disciplined mind, among the last to cloy and exhaust it, 
and wholly pure and innocent ; but especially, that a strictly agricultural life, 
under those reasonable limitations which apply to every other pursuit, is not 
incompatible with the pursuit of science and the cultivation of a refined taste ; 
so that men of fortune, talents, and liberal education, who now sacrifice tlieir 
fortunes in tlie idle pastimes and frivolities of city life, and their health and peace 
of mind in its feverish excitements, and the competitions of a diseased vanity 
and ambition, would find in the simple and hospitable habits of rural life, healtli 
and vigor of body and mind, and that independence of money and of time, and 
opportunities for general reading, or the prosecution of any favorite science, 
^vliich it is almost impossible to find in the crowded haunts and the eternal and 
ever-varying round of city engagements and pleasures. The most gifted minds 
accomplish comparatively little, and fall far short of what might be hoped and 
expected. The most humble contributions may not be without avail in affecting 
the mass of public opinion and sentiment. I am happy in thinking that I have 
sometimes struck a sympathetic chord in some generous minds ; and under any 
and every discouragement, I console myself with the perfect and serene con- 
sciousness of having labored at a purpose wholly disinterested, innocent, and 
useful. 

What govermnents should do in tlie case, is a most important question. A 



XX PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

great portion of the governments which have existed, have been little else than 
an unmitigated curse to mankind. The accumulation of wealth, the acquisition 
of territory, family aggrandizement, purposes of purely selfish ambition, the 
mere pomp and luxuries of life, military domination and despotism, have been 
almost tlie sole purposes aimed at by the governments of the world. The only 
legitimate purposes of government are the security and welfare of the gov- 
erned ; but how little have these been regarded ! how often entirely overlooked ! 
Holding, as I do, all offensive war, of every description, and under any pretext, 
as a crime against humanity and against God, one's heart bleeds at the recitals 
of history, which seem little else than recitals of bloody conquests and human 
slaughter, of wasted fields, of famishing millions, and of sacked and burning 
villages. If the millions and millions of laboring hands, of sacrificed lives, and 
of hardly-earned treasures, which have been worse than squandered upon these 
wicked objects, had been devoted to the subjugation and cultivation of the waste 
places of the earth, and, instead of attempts to destroy, society had devoted itself 
to attempts to save life, and to the production of food and the multiplication of 
tlie comforts and innocent luxuries of mankind, how different would have been 
the result! 

What an extraordinary moral anomaly, if so it may be called, does France at 
this moment present — a nation on the verge of bankruptcy, burdened with exces- 
sive taxation, with an army of four hundred thousand men, and more than nineteen 
millions of acres of unoccupied land, all susceptible of cultivation, and of feeding 
and clothing millions ! Does Great Britain furnish no parallel to this monstrous 
fact ? With an increasing national debt, whose payment is perfectly hopeless, 
a weight of taxation the subject of universal complaint, millions upon millions 
lavished upon her armies and navies ; workliouses and prisons filled to repletion, 
tliousands and hundreds of thousands upon tlie verge of starvation ; and in the 
two great islands, resplendent witli the brightest lights of civilization, more than 
thirteen millions of acres of unoccupied land, and even her cultivated soil, witli 
an improved agriculture, capable of sustaining in plenty three times tlie number 
of those who now draw nourisliment from her breast. What a singular con- 
juncture of circumstances ! 

Are not these monstrous facts, deeply distressing to philanthropy, deeply 
wounding to human pride ? We may well ask, If in two of the most enlight- 
ened, the most civilized, and the most polished nations which have ever existed, 
nothing better has been attained, or rather so much remains unaccomplished for 
human comfort, such a mass of human crime and misery remains unreached and 
unalleviated ; have we not some reason to ask, what are the blessings, and what 
are tlie triumphs of civilization ? We have a right to demand whetlier the true 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XXI 

ends of government and society have been answered ; — whether it has really 
reached the limits of its power for good ; and whether it has not yet to study the 
arts of peace and the public welfare. The expenses of fortifying Paris and of 
providing its armaments, would have converted a whole department into a garden, 
teeming with the substantive comforts and luxuries of life. The enormous ex- 
penses of the wars, under the empire, of which now little remains but triumphal 
arches stained all over with human blood, and splendid monuments to tlie glory 
of one of the great butchers of the human species, would have converted the 
whole of France into a fruitful field ; planted every wliere schools, churches, 
colleges, and smiling villages ; filled her every where with the industrial arts, 
and witli monuments of taste; banished, under the blessing of Heaven, all want, 
where there was industry to collect, and frugality to use the products of nature's 
bounty ; and put it in the power of every one of her thirty-sLx millions of people 
to sit down in peace and comfort under his own vine and fig-tree. Tlic moneys 
expended in the naval armaments of Great Britain, in the preparations of muni- 
tions of war, in the support of her navies and armies in any year of her liistory, 
what would not they have done in subduing and making her waste lands pro- 
ductive ! The sums expended for her defence of Ireland, for the repression of 
disorders, in a great measure consequent upon her wants and miseries, and the 
vast sums bestowed upon that wretched country in charity, the necessity of 
which springs directly and wholly from its neglected and wretched agriculture, 
what would not they have accomplished in draining her bogs, in enriching her 
meadows, in changing her mud hovels into comfortable cottages ; in warding off 
the grim horrors of famine, and in raising millions of human beings, sunk, as I 
myself have witnessed, in a lower degradation than that in wliich it seemed 
possible that human life could be sustained, to the common level of humanity, 
and even to a high measure of comfort and civilization ! 

What, then, shall government do to remedy the dreadful evils under which 
civilized society is now groaning aloud ; and one part of God's family is impi- 
ously complaining that He permits another portion, though with equal rights as 
tliemselves, to come into the world ; and our cities, from an excessive compe- 
tition or production in the pursuits of mechanical industry, or in the learned 
professions, are every where teeming with masses of misery and crime ? I do 
not say that an extended and improved agriculture would prove the only remedy : 
nor tliat it would prove a certain remedy ; but I believe it would prove effectual 
to a certain and large degree ; and I demand to know what single remedy will 
prove more efficient. To whatever degree, be it more or less, to which it is 
extended, it increases national wealth ; it multiplies the means of subsistence ; 



XXll PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

it withdraws men from tlie competitions of trade and manufactures ; and, above 
all, it attaches men to the soil, and so far gives a pledge of order, loyalty, and 
patriotism. 

The efforts of government, then, should be directed to give every possible 
facility and protection to this art or pursuit; to render land accessible ; to break 
up those tenures under which, by various provisions, worthy only of a barbarous 
age, land is kept out of cultivation; to alleviate, as much as possible, the bur- 
dens upon land ; to assist in all those great improvements, which are too vast 
for individual effort ; to diffuse agricultural knowledge ; to promote agricultural 
education ; to learn and translate the improvements and crops of other countries : 
and by honors and premiums to encourage an emulation in the only art in M-hich 
emulation is not only innocent and harmless, but always useful to all parties ; and 
tluis to stimulate cultivation and improvement in every branch of this art, and 
induce habits of domestic economy, by every practicable means. What govern- 
ments can do on a large scale, landlords and proprietors may do perhaps more 
efficiently and successfully within their own domains. May they feel the great 
responsibility whicli their situation imposes on tliem ! If any one of the great 
nations of Europe would give but half the attention and half the expense to the 
improvement of its agriculture, which it now bestows upon its military prepara- 
tions and improvements, we might expect an equal proficiency in the one art as 
in the other. Which should be preferred — whether it be better to save life or 
to destroy — I leave to the judgment of my readers. 

It is now only a few months since I passed a day at Waterloo. I saw, waving 
with their luxuriant crops, the fields which had been enriched by torrents of 
human blood : I stood upon the grassy mound under which tens of slaughtered 
thousands lay entombed. I have a profound reverence for that heroism which 
bares its bosom in defence of right, justice, and freedom ; but I have no respect 
for that tiger ferocity which deligjits in human carnage, and that mad enthusiasm 
which follows, reckless of its own and of other lives, the phantom which men 
call military glory. The cannon's roar, the waving plumes, the burnished hel- 
met, the bristling bayonets glittering in the sunshine, have no charms for me. I 
took in my hands a skull pierced by a ball, which the plough had recently turned 
up. I thought for a moment of the burning passions, the fiery hate, the thirst 
for revenge, for conquest, and for blood, which had filled and swelled in tliis little 
casket, — the noblest production of divine power, — when death instantly de- 
manded the account. Other associations rushed upon the mind. I thought of 
some once cheerful fireside made desolate ; of some aged mother robbed of her 
staff; of a widow cast friendless upon the world ; of orphan children, and of 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. XXlll 

weeping friends. And this, said I to myself, is military glory ; these are the 
trophies of war. l touna the sprmgs ot feeling beginning to be deeply moved. 
I turned my eyes at once to other neighboring fields of conquest, which I had 
recently left. I had seen millions of acres, by an enterprise truly grand, a 
courage most heroic, a labor most indomitable, rescued from the sea, and its 
proud waves repelled ; barren sands converted into fruitful fields ; and where tlie 
ocean held its profitless sway, and the winds, and waves, and tempests were 
accustomed to spend their mingled and destructive violence, the calmness and 
security of rural life every where triumphant ; fields crowned with plenty, and 
speckled every where with rejoicing herds ; and cities and villages swarming 
with busy and happy thousands, and rich in all the arts and luxuries of civilized 
and refined life. I did not need to ask myself, What conquests are tne most 
noble ? 

I hope my kind reader will not deem these reflections misplaced, as prelimi- 
nary to the somewhat dry task and the plain matters of fact to which I now 
invite him. One of the most distinguished agriculturists which England ever 
produced said, " tliat the best way of improving agriculture was to go abroad 
and see what other people were doing." I have been now some time in Great 
Britain and on the Continent, that I might see what other people were doing, 
and learn from personal observation the true state of the agriculture and the 
rural economy of the old world ; that I might present to the agricultural com- 
munity in my own country, and in other places, matters of instruction and exam- 
ples for imitation, if such were to be found ; or subjects of congratulation if their 
own improvements have already placed them in advance, and left them nothing 
to learn. A full survey of European agriculture is a task for many minds, for 
many years of observation, and for higher talents and acquirements than I could 
bring to the work. Yet I shall deem it no mean honor to contribute any useful 
service to so important an object. It will be understood that I enter the field 
only as a gleaner. It is said that the gleaners often bring home the heaviest and 
the ripest heads of grain, because these are the first to drop from the stalks. I 
shall be but too happy if the analogy should be found to hold in my case. 

The sketches of French agriculture commence at the ninth report ; and these 
will be followed by, and sometimes intermingled with, sketches of Flemish and 
Swiss agriculture, and other observations which have suggested themselves 
in the course of my tour. There may be found some deficiencies, because I 
mean to state nothing, unless otherwise declared, which has not been verified by 
personal observation ; but, on the other hand, there will be this advantage, that 
such statements rest upon a responsible authority. My great object will be to 



XXIV PBELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

give, almost exclusively, information of a practical character ; but if occasionally 
there may appear some slight digressions, my kind reader will regard them only 
as watering-places on the journey, where the traveller loosens the reins and 
dismounts for a moment in a dry and dusty road, that he may renew his progress 
with more freshness and vigor 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



SIXTH REPORT. 



I PROCEED, in this Report, to treat of other processes than 
those which I have described in the management of arable 
land. 

XC — PARING AND BURNING. 

The process of paring and burning the surface of the land has 
been practised with great, though not always with equal, success 
in many parts of the country. The objects of it are threefold : 
the first, to reduce the coarse vegetable matter on the surface to 
a state of decomposition, that it may be supplanted by a more 
profitable vegetation ; the second, to destroy grubs, insects, and 
the larvae of insects, which infest the soils, and are pernicious to 
the cultivated crops ; and the third, to convert the coarse, vege- 
table matter on the surface into ashes, for the nutriment of the 
crops which are to follow. This process is not to be confounded 
with that, which I shall afterwards describe, of burning clay for 
the purpose of manure and of rendering the soil friable and per- 
vious to the roots of plants. 

In the operation of paring and burning, a thin slice, or turf, 
varying from one to three inches, is taken from the surface, and, 
after being sufficiently dried, is cut into pieces of a convenient 
length, and then piled in heaps preparatory to being burned and 
reduced to ashes. The turf is cut sometimes with a plough with 
a broad share, of the width of the slice desired to be raised, or, 

VOL. II. 1 



2 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Otherwise, with a spade made thin, with a flange or wing on one 
side of the blade, resembhng, in this respect, a spade for the cut- 
ting of peat, and with a long and curved handle, with a cross- 
piece at the end, by which it is forced under the sward by a 
pressure against the thighs of the workman. The work, when 
performed with the spade, is deemed severe, and it is considered 
a sufficient day's work for a man to accomplish a quarter of 
an acre. 

The sods, when collected, are piled in heaps of a larger or 
smaller size, according to the convenience of the operator, pains 
being taken to form a sort of furnace beneath, in which are 
placed some brushwood, fagots, or coal, as in the oven of a 
brickkiln. The sods are piled over this ; and, fire being kindled, 
attention is paid to prevent its blazing out, so that wherever a 
hole is found, by which the fire might escape, it is immediately 
filled up with fresh dirt ; and, as the fire advances, new sods are 
occasionally heaped upon the pile ; the object being to reduce 
the whole to ashes by a smouldering fire. It is surprising to 
find to what a fine state the sods and vegetable matter may be 
reduced, and how the burning will continue to go on, though 
the whole seems to be in a state of perfect quiescence. A 
thorough burning requires frequently a month, or a longer time, 
for its completion. 

The headlands of a field are occasionally burned without the 
rest of the field being subjected to the same process. Here there 
is always an accumulation of soil, and a collection of rubbish, 
coarse grass, weeds, or bushes ; and all these are dug up occa- 
sionally to the depth of six or ten inches, and piled in heaps, and 
burned as I have above described. In cases where the whole is 
not consumed, the part which is not sufficiently reduced by the 
action of the fire is transferred to another heap. Two or three 
pieces of advice are commonly given in regard to the manage- 
ment of this burning. One is, not to make the heaps too large 
in the beginning, as the weight of the incumbent mass is liable 
to extinguish the fire, but to heap it up gradually as the fire goes 
on ; the second is, not to allow the fire to blaze out, as else it 
would soon burn itself out ; and a third is, not to make the fire 
too hot, as otherwise much of the earth, instead of being made 
to crumble, and reduced to a friable state, would become baked 
hard, like bricks. 



PARING AND BURNING. ^ 3 

The ashes, then, of these heaps are evenly spread over the 
fields operated upon ; and this is generally followed by a green 
crop, such as vetches or turnips, which, under good management, 
are consumed on the field. Then follows the usual course of 
wheat, barley, and grass. The amount of ashes, obtained by 
the ordinary process of paring and burning, has been made the 
subject of exact calculation, and is so remarkable that I deem it 
worth stating. " An acre of land, from which the turf was taken 
in the common mode of paring and burning, appeared to have 
produced an average of 2660 bushels of ashes, which, at their 
mean weight of 65 pounds to a bushel, when dry, would give 
172,900 pounds, or rather more than 11 tons, per acre." 

The subject of paring and burning land has been long matter 
of warm discussion. Of its advantages, in many cases, there can 
be no doubt. In the well-cultivated county of Essex, it is a 
constant and successful practice. A distinguished farmer states 
that he has practised it for more than twenty years ; and where, 
when he began the practice, he was able to keep only one, he 
now keeps six sheep. It has been said that the destruction of 
the vegetable matter, in the soil must necessarily impoverish it ; 
and that it would be much better to bury this vegetable matter, 
where, by a slow decomposition, it might serve to afford nutri- 
ment to the crops to be cultivated. There are, in the first place, 
some mechanical difficulties in the case. Where a piece of heath 
land, covered with coarse grasses and low bushes of furze or fern, 
is ploughed, it is extremely difficult, even by the most severe 
process of pressing or rolling, to make it lie flat, and so consoli- 
date it that it can be cultivated to advantage. This is stated to 
have been the fact, on an extensive heath in Surrey, where cul- 
tivation, under the practice of paring and burning, succeeded well, 
but very ill where the land was only turned over without paring 
and burning. "In the former case, the land was immediately fit 
for turnips, tares, barley, and clover ; in the latter, the tough 
wiry-bent heath, and dwarf furze, kept the land too light and 
spongy for any crop. Even rolling could not keep it down, for 
its elasticity raised the soil soon after the roller had passed over 
it, and it is of so imperishable a nature, that it is likely to plague 
the farmer for many years." There are certainly strong reasons, 
in such cases, for paring and burning fields of this description ; 
but they do not apply to those lands where the vegetable matter 



4 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

is of a different description, and would, by being covered over, 
be speedily brought into a state of decomposition. Here the 
expediency of paring and burning is more questionable. 

In the process of burning, it is evident that none of the earthy 
or mineral constituents, or what are called the inorganic portions 
of the soil, are consumed. But all the vegetable matter, with 
the exception of that portion which has become charred in the 
process, is destroyed. The extreme doctrine of some eminent 
chemists is, that the humus, or vegetable portion of the soil, is 
of no importance to vegetation ; but universal experience and 
observation seem to attest that the fertility of soils, with some 
exceptions, may be ordinarily determined by the quantity of 
decayed vegetable matter or mould in which they abound. If 
plants, in fact, derive nothing from the soil but the mineral in- 
gredients which are found in them, yet the humus of the soil 
may itself be the means of abstracting from the air, and conduct- 
ing to the plants, the nourishment, the carbonic acid, and the 
ammonia, which they are to obtain from thence.* The humus 
of the soil serves to render it more friable ; it absorbs moisture 
from the atmosphere, and it retains heat, and, in these respects, 
if in no other, contributes to vegetation. f In dissipating this 

* "Humus, in contact with air, gives off carbonic acid." "The capital 

fact which results from these experiments of Saussure, the deduction directly ap- 
plicable to the theory of manures, is this — that humus is dissipated Avhen it is ex- 
posed to the air ; and that, during the slow combustion which it undergoes, it is 
a constant source of carbonic acid gas." — Boussingault, p. 323. 

" Potash and soda dissolve humus almost completely, causing an evolution of 
ammonia." — Ibid. p. 321. 

f " There is an important element, which must always be taken into the ac- 
count in estimating the value of soils, no matter what their special composition ; 
this element is their depth, or thickness. In running a deepish furrow in a cultivated 
field, we generally distinguish at a glance the deptli of the superficial layer, which 
is commonly designated as tlie mould, or vegetable earth ; this is a layer gener- 
ally impregnated with humus, and looser and more friable than the subsoil upon 
which it rests. The thickness of tliis superficial layer is extremely variable. It 
is frequently no more tlian about three inches ; but it is also encountered of every 
depth, from three or four to twelve or thirteen inches. It must be held an ex- 
ceptional and unusual case, when it has a depth of three feet, or more. Never- 
theless, we do meet with collections of vegetable soil of great depth, deposited 
by rivers, washed down into the bottoms of valleys, or accumulated on the surface, 
as in the virgin forests or vast prairies of America. Depth of mould or vegetable 
soil is always advantageous ; it is one of the best conditions to successful agri- 
culture. If we have depth of soil, and the roots of our plants do not penetrate 



PARING AND BURNING. 



matter, then, by burning, we must look for some compensation 
in the ashes which are produced, or in the mechanical effects 
which this burning operates upon the soil. The ashes them- 
selves are powerful absorbents and retainers of moisture, and they 
answer a valuable purpose in the disintegration, or loosening, of 
the soil. They certainly, in many cases, operate as an efficient 
manure. I have seen their effects often, both upon old and new 
land. In examining the returns of nearly four thousand dif- 
ferent wheat crops in Massachusetts, in which, with a view to 
secure the premium offered by the state upon the cultivation 
of wheat, it was required to give the mode of culture in detail, 
I. found, in every case where ashes were applied to manure the 
crop, the beneficial effects were emphatically affirmed. In clear- 
ing new land, it has been the custom to fell the standing wood, 
and, after it has become sufficiently dried, to burn it completely 
upon the land. This always leaves a large deposit of ashes on 
the ground. It is common to plant Indian corn directly upon 
these ashes, without ploughing the land, and, at the close of the 
season, at the last hoeing of the corn, or indeed its only hoeing, 
to sow wheat among it, which, to use the common phrase, is 
then "hacked in" by the hoe. Some of the largest crops of 
Indian corn and of wheat, which I have ever known, have been 
grown in this way. In one case, upon a very large field, the 
product of wheat averaged sixty-four bushels to the acre. What 
is the chemical effect of ashes, I believe, is not well ascertained : 
but I shall presently let those give their opinion who assume to 
understand their operation. It seems natural to infer, that that 
which once formed a constituent element in a plant may serve 
as food for another plant of the same species. There may be 
other uses, which are not so direct and obvious, but equally 
efficient. 

The expediency of paring and burning land must, as I have 
remarked, depend upon the nature of the soil which is to be 



sufficiently to derive benefit from the fertility that lies below, we can always, by 
workinn; a little deeper, bring up the inferior layers to the surface, and so make 
them concur in fertilizing the soil. Independently of this great advantage, a deep 
soil suffers less either from excess or deficiency of moisture ; the rain that falls 
has more to moisten, and is therefore absorbed in greater quantity than by thin 
soils; and, once imbibed, it remains in store against drought." — Bonssin- 
gauU, p. 297. 

1* 



b EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

subjected to the process. On light, sandy, or gravelly soils, 
where the vegetation is thin and sparse, it is strongly objection- 
able. I will subjoin here an extract of a letter, with which I 
have been favored, from the intelligent steward of the excellently- 
managed farm of Lord Hatherton, at Teddesley, Staffordshire. 
" With respect to the trial we made, of paring and burning some 
of the high heath lands at Teddesley, we prepared two small 
patches, about half an acre each, in the usual way, in the spring 
of 1844, upon the highest part of the Teddesley common, and 
the ashes were spread and harrowed when the turnip seed was 
sown. The other part was ploughed and dressed with about 
five tons of lime to the acre, and sown with turnips at the same 
time as the above ; but, in consequence of the summer of 1844 
being unusually dry, both experiments were deficient. We 
again sowed the land with turnips last June, and the land pre- 
pared with lime has now a decided advantage, and I have not 
the least doubt it will be much more apparent in the next crop, 
which will be oats. I have frequently witnessed the experiment 
of paring and burning waste lands, when they are first brought 
into cultivation ; but in no instance should I recommend its 
adoption upon dry, sandy soils, which are already deficient in 
vegetable matter, which is the case with most of the common 
lands in this neighborhood, particularly the high lands. The 
crop of oats was grown upon the highest part of the common, 
after a crop of turnips, for which the land was broken up and 
limed, as I have before stated." " The crop of oats on this land, 
of which there were sixty acres, were at the rate of full sixty 
bushels to the acre — the result of heavily liming the land when 
first broken up, and then twice eating turnips off it ; " (that is, 
eating them on it, by folding the sheep upon it. — H. 0.) *' On 
no other plan than that of taking nothing out of the land, and 
putting as much as possible in, could such a produce of oats have 
been obtained from such a soil." * 

The lime, in this case, if it were copiously applied, as I saw 

* Since writinfj tlie above, a very competent friend Avrites to me tlius : " The 
experiment of burninrr did not answer. All my experience has satisfied me that 
it will not do on my (jTonnd. Nor do I believe that it is a good thing any where, 
where other means of reducing vegetable matter can be had. I have pared and 
burned a good deal formerly. It brought good crops, but the land was clearly 
impoverished afterwards." 



PARING AND BURNING. 7 

preparations for doing on another part of the farm, may have 
assisted, as the fire would have done, in the decomposition of the 
vegetable matter. The lime is advised to be applied always 
with the ashes, when the surface is pared and burned. They are 
stated to work well together. A certain gentleman, about to 
undertake the office of a judge, was advised, by another very 
shrewd and experienced magistrate, to give his decisions without 
giving the reasons for those decisions. Perhaps he saw that his 
causality was deficient, or knew how often it happens in life 
that for many exceedingly well-established facts it is very dif- 
ficult to give any reasons. I avail myself, in this case, of the 
same sage advice. The eff"ects of lime are in a degree capricious 
and uncertain. I know that they must follow the general and 
established laws of nature ; but, in spite of the confidence of 
some men, it does not appear that these laws are yet fully under- 
stood. A deficiency of lime in the soil implies the necessity and 
advantages of its application ; but the " quantitive philosophy," 
as it is called, leaves me sometimes at a loss, when I am told, on 
the one hand, that the ashes of a crop of clover, on an acre, con- 
tain full three bushels of gypsum ; and know, on the other hand, 
that half a bushel of gypsum sown broadcast, in a rainy day. 
upon an acre of clover, will often very much more than double 
the crop. In this case, whatever may have been the effects of 
the lime, or whatever, in any case, may be the advantages of 
mixing lime with ashes, where land has been pared and burned, 
(and I am not disposed to deny them,) the advantages of consum- 
ing the crops of turnips upon the ground, by folding and feeding 
the sheep, are not matter of question. A high authority, on the 
treatment of land which is pared and burned, advises " to apply 
the whole of the manure produced by the crops to the ground ; 
and to manage it, generally, in the usual course of regularly-cul- 
tivated arable land." This corresponds with the shrewd advice. 
to which I referred in a former number, given in respect to the 
application of a new artificial manure, which was, that, in ad- 
dition to the artificial manure, you should apply to the ground 
the quantity of other manure ordinnrily used in such cultivafio?? : 
and somewhat reminds one of the mode adopted by the Irish 
servant, (an Irishman, of course,) whom his master desired to get 
rid of a light guinea, and who reported to him, with much self- 



8 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

i 

gratulation, that he had done it most adroitly by passing it, un- 
observed, at the turnpike-gate, between two sixpences. 

The paring and burning of peat land is always advised, and 
the ashes to be spread. Here there is an excess of vegetable 
matter, which, perishing under cold water, and that water usually 
impregnated with an excess of iron or some pernicious mineral 
substance, is in an unfit condition for the purposes of vegeta- 
tion. The coarse grasses, likewise, customarily found upon peat 
meadows, forming a thick, matted sward, require to be either 
entirely removed, or thoroughly reduced and decomposed, before 
a better kind of vegetation can take their place. Peat ashes are 
stated to have a specific value, which I shall speak of presently. 
The burning of peat ground, however, requires very great care, 
as I have sometimes seen very deep and inconvenient holes made 
in the surface, by the fire having been sufi"ered to proceed too far. 

In all cases where it is attempted to bring a soil into cultiva- 
tion by paring and burning, it is considered indispensable to 
success, that the land should be drained and laid thoroughly dry. 
This rule applies to other cases, besides those of paring and 
burning. I may, as well as not, here, though I shall have occa- 
sion to repeat it hereafter, urge upon farmers the importance of 
laying their land dry, or rather of having the command of the 
water upon it, in order to a successful culture. Without this, it 
is idle to expect success. Water, one of the great elements in 
vegetation, may, by excess, become thoroughly pernicious and 
destructive, except to those coarse aquatic plants to which it is 
the natural condiment and home.* 



* After writing the above article, I met witli some remarks of the distinguished 
writer on rural economy, Boussingault, to whom I have before referred, which 
had not before met my eye, but which I know my inquisitive readers will be glad 
that I should present to them. 

"The effect of the imperfect combustion of these pyritic turfs, the product 
which results from it, explains to a certain extent the beneficial effects of the 
practice of paring and burning — an important and widely-spread practice, the 
utility of which it would be difficult to understand, were it not connected in some 
way witli the production of ammoniacal ashes. 

" The useful effects of paring and burning are, in all probability, connected with 
the destruction of organic matter, very poor in azotized principles ; in the trans- 
formation of the surface of the soil into a porous, carbonaceous earth, made apt to 
condense and retain the ammoniacal vapors disengaged during the combustion ; 



BURNING LAND. 



XCL — BURNING LAND. 



The burning of the soil is a process somewhat different from 
that of paring and burning, and, properly speaking, for different 
objects, though the latter process tends in some degree to the 
same end. No operation in husbandry, which I have seen this 
side of the water, surprised me so much as this. Of its expe- 
diency, or rather of its remunerative character, I must leave 
others to judge. In the last particular, the difference between 
two dollars a week for labor without board, and three dollars a 
week with board, will be found material. In either case, it will 
be found that there are few operations more expensive. 

The question which an English farmer, or improver of land, 
often proposes to himself, is very different from what an Ameri- 
can farmer in similar circumstances would propose to himself. 
The price of land in England is often most exorbitant, £60 
sterling, or 300 dollars, per acre, being frequently paid for large 
farms, and, not seldom, much more than that. The annual 
rents paid in Great Britain for extensive farms would, in some 

lastly, by the production of alkaline and earthy salts, which are familiarly known to 
exert a most beneficial influence upon vegetation. These conditions seem so 
entirely those, the object of which it is to realize by paring- and burning, that, in or- 
der to make the operation favorable to the soil which undergoes it, the vegetable 
matter which it has produced must of necessity be transformed into black ashes ; 
when it goes beyond this, when the incineration is complete, and the residue pre- 
sents itself as a red ash, the soil may be struck with perfect barrenness for the fu- 
ture. The burning, therefore, that was not properly managed, that led to the com- 
plete incineration of all tlie organic matter, would, for the same reason, have a very 
bad effect in the preparation of the Picardy ashes ; Avhich might, indeed, act in 
the same way as turf ashes from the hearth and oven, but which, deprived of all 
azotized principles, would not ameliorate the ground in the manner of organic 
manures." 

" I have frequently seen the process of burning performed in the steppes of 
Southern America. Fire is set to the pastures after the grass which covers 
them has become dry and woody ; the flame spreads with inconceivable rapidity? 
and to immense distances. The earth becomes charred and black ; the combus- 
tion of those parts that are nearest to the surface, however, is never complete ; 
and a few days after the passage of the flame, a fresh and vigorous vegetation is 
seen sprouting tlirough the blackened soil, so that in a few weeks the scone of 
the desolation by fire becomes changed mto a rich and verdant meadow." — 
Rural Economy, p. 374. 



10 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

cases, almost buy the fee simple of lands in the United States, 
lands much more fertile, and, in the old and settled parts of the 
country, subdued, well fenced, and with good buildings. Where 
land now is waste, and produces little or nothing, it is obvious 
that it would be wiser to expend a sum equal to what would be 
the full value of the land after its improvement, than to suffer it 
to remain wholly unproductive ; such improvements may, in 
fact, be considered as creating so much land, as adding so much 
productive land to an estate. In the United States, where land 
is abundant and cheap, such expensive improvements, unless on 
a small scale, and in some most favored localities, cannot be 
recommended. It would be wiser to abandon land so worthless, 
and have recourse to better soils, which are easily accessible for 
prices vastly less than the expense of such improvements. 

The process of burning land, of which I am speaking, is ap- 
plicable only to stiff, clay soils. The objects of it are, first, to 
render it friable, and destroy its adhesiveness, and the second is 
to create a supply of manure in the ashes of the soil thus burned. 
The first I can understand ; the second seems more difficult of 
credence. 

The process consists in digging, either with a plough or spade, 
the whole top-soil of a field, and placing it in small heaps, with 
a furnace or oven under them, where a fire of coal, or fagots, or 
brushwood may be kindled, and continue to burn until the 
whole pile is, properly speaking, reduced to an ash-heap, as far 
as the nature of the substance so reduced admits of being so 
designated. Where I have seen the process carried on, the depth 
of soil so dug and burned did not much exceed a foot ; but I have 
been made acquainted with one experiment, where the depth so 
moved and reduced was three feet. Those of my readers who 
are fond of mathematical calculations may amuse themselves 
with calculating the gross number of tons of earth which, on a 
single acre, must be moved in such an operation ; and I think 
they will be surprised at the result. I know of scarcely any 
thing like it, except in the case of the old man in the fable, who 
bequeathed to his two sons a valuable treasure buried in the 
field, for which they were to dig. Whether avarice or curiosity 
prompted them in the case to go deeper than this, and to accom- 
plish a more Herculean task than this, we are not informed. 

In one case, which I saw, the pieces of clay were baked 



BURNING LAND. 11 

into hard lumps ; and a good deal was completely vitrified, the 
whole presenting the appearance of the floor of a brickkiln after 
the burned bricks had been removed. The process here had evi- 
dently been carried too far, and the experiment disappointed the 
enterprising undertaker — a failure, for which he suggested many 
causes besides the true one. I have always found that the 
strong back — for very strong it must be to bear all that is put 
upon it — of a certain nameless personage in theology was an ex- 
ceedingly convenient repository for certain persons to put their 
sins upon, which their own inordinate self-esteem would not 
allow them to ascribe to the proper source ; so my friend, in this 
case, had half a dozen reasons to give respecting the season, and 
other extraneous hinderances, in place of the true reasons why 
his experiment failed ; and, like a brave veteran, the hero of 
many fights, in the midst of his discomfiture, his heart still 
glowed with the confidence of ultimate success. Such courage 
and perseverance deserve a better reward than I fear he will 
obtain. There are some chemists, learned in the highest degree, 
who speak with confidence of pounded glass being used as a 
manure ; and another, eminent in his peculiar science, speaks of 
the power of a plant, in its wonderful action of growth, to de- 
compose the sides of the glass vessel in which it is grown, and 
appropriate portions of it for its nutriment. 1 believe it. He is 
a brave man who will presume to say what cannot be done. A 
single imprisoned drop of water, by the power of fire or of frost, 
may rend a mountaiii asunder. The power of vegetable action 
is as tenacious and indomitable as the Creator could make it, for 
the purposes for which he designed it ; and it is only another 
form in which that wonderful Power, which can command stones 
that they shall be made bread, displays itself, that enables the 
plant, which is itself to become bread to man, to extract, even 
from the inert stones themselves, its own proper nutriment and 
substance, and convert them into a principle of life. 

I do not know where better than in this place to insert a letter 
received from a most intelligent and practical farmer in Stafford- 
shire, which will be read with interest, and which relates partic- 
ularly to this mode of improvement. 

" I fear it will not be in my power to give you any satisfac- 
tory or decisive information as to the result of burning the Need- 
wood Forest clay sand. What I have done has not been by 



12 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

paring and burning the surface, which is, I believe, pretty exten- 
sively done in some parts of England. In that case, I presume, 
a great portion of the substance burned is vegetable matter, 
which almost of itself furnishes the fuel for burning the soil. 
I have ploughed up a fallow-field as deep as the plough would 
go, perhaps a foot deep, of which three or four inches were 
clayey soil, and the rest pure clay, and have then with coal- 
slack burned the whole in small heaps, or in rows. This is the 
third season since it was done ; but the two which have elapsed 
have, from drought, been extremely unfavorable for the cultiva- 
tion of land out of which every particle of moisture had been 
burned." 

" I have also very imperfectly succeeded in having the burning 
effected as I should have wished. The clay breaks up in large, 
rough, solid lumps, and it is extremely difficult to subject the 
whole to the action of fire, without having a large portion of it 
reduced to brick, or brick-dust. Under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances this is difficult, and the difficulty is constantly in- 
creased by weather. A violent wind drives through the heaps, 
rapidly consumes the fuel, bricking the clay in contact with it, 
and leaving the rest untouched ; or a soaking rain, for a day or 
two, interferes equally unfavorably. The object, I presume, 
should be to get the fire to smoulder through the whole mass, 
which no doubt would be more easily effected if it were some- 
what of a more loamy character, and had any tendency in itself 
to carry on the action of the fire." 

" In 1843, I had a very full crop of barley from the first half 
acre, which was burned and spread down early in the spring, 
and received a good soak of rain. From the next portion I had 
a very bad crop of potatoes, and from the rest of the field a poor 
crop of turnips, which were sowed very late, and, from want of 
moisture, did not come up till they should have been half grown. 
They were a healthy crop, but very small. Last year I sowed 
barley, which came up very partially, from want of moisture ; 
and in June, I ploughed it up and sowed turnips, which in all 
this part of the country (as well as in that field) were, last year, 
(1844,) a complete failure. These two years of non-return from 
the burned land indisposed me to try it for another without the 
aid of manure. I dunged it, and have now on one half a good 
growing crop of oats, and on the other a beautiful crop of wheat. 



BURNING LAND. 13 

One land of the wheat was left without manure. It was worse 
than the rest, but not bad. In the icorking of the land a vast im- 
provement has been effected by the burning. I sent specimens of 
my unburned and burned clay to be analyzed by Professor John- 
ston, iu Edinburgh ; who wrote to me, after the analysis, that he 
was quite unable to assign any chemical reason for the fertilizing 
efiects attributed to it. I told him that I had not any experience 
myself of its fertilizing effects ; and I then sent him specimens 
of clay, burned and unburned, from Newhall, a colliery distant 
about seven miles from this place, where I have been shown 
fields, which are said to have borne six and seven successive 
luxuriant crops without a particle of manure, after being burned, 
having previously been exceedingly unproductive. The clay is 
in appearance very different from mine, and burns into a very 
different substance, apparently not having any tendency to burn 
into brick, but into black and red loam. I have not yet received 
Professor Johnston's report upon them."' 

" In the last two years I have burned a great deal of clay, but 
it has been under different circumstances, and with different 
objects. In draining my land, nearly the whole material taken 
out is pure clay, which I consider unfit to be put in again, in that 
state, over the tiles. I therefore burn it, and then fill the drains 
with burned clay, of which about one half then remains, which 
I cast upon my plough-land to improve its texture, in which way 
I find it very useful." 

Experience is always a valuable instructor, when that expe- 
rience is intelligent, and carefully detailed. The letter which I 
have given is, on every account, entitled to respect. I shall pro- 
ceed to give some other details from another source, the Journals 
of the Royal Agricultural Society.* 

Mr. Charles Randell, who speaks of having had much expe- 
rience in the improvement of cold and heavy soils, by the appli- 
cation of burned clay, has given the particulars of several experi- 
ments of this nature. 

The first was made with a field of eleven acres of the worst 
description of clay on the side of a steep hill, " inaccessible to 
the dung cart, to which it had always been a stranger." It was 
ploughed in the summer, and he, with the scuffle and drag, 

* Vol. V. part i. p. 113. 
VOL. II. 2 



14 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

brought the clods of couch grass and wiry turf to the surface, 
which, with the quantity of soil necessary to procure a good 
dressing of ashes, were shovelled and forked together, and burned 
in heaps of about a cart-load each, with wood from the neglected 
hedge-rows in the vicinity. The weather, he says, was unfa- 
vorable, and the work not well done, but the result was sat- 
isfactory. The field, after the ashes were lightly ploughed in, 
was planted with vetches, and these were eaten otf the succeed- 
ing summer with sheep, and then planted with wheat, which 
produced more than thirty bushels per acre. It was afterwards 
laid down to grass, and carries a much heavier stock than before. 
He says " that, if he finds it go back, he shall plough it again for 
vetches, having no doubt that it is now capable of bearing a 
crop sufficient, Avhen consumed upon the land by sheep," (I beg 
my readers particularly to remark this qualification,) "to enable 
it to grow as good a crop of wheat as the last." 

His next trial was upon a field of sixteen acres, fifteen of 
which are a strong clay, the remainder fair turnip land. The 
clay part of the field was exceedingly foul, so that he had two 
objects to attain — first, to get rid of the couch by burning it in 
the clods ; next, with the ashes so obtained, to render the whole 
field capable of bearing a crop of swedes. In this case, likewise, 
he speaks of his success. " The whole, after draining, was limed 
and manured alike, and the crop was quite as good upon the 
clay as upon any part of the field. All the swedes were con- 
sumed upon the land by sheep ; the succeeding barley crop 
was much better upon the part which had rarely, if ever, been 
planted with barley before ; the seeds (that is, the grass seeds) 
were equally good; but the wheat crop this year, (1843,) from 
the excessive growth of straw, went down early, and became 
mildewed, and, though more bulky than the rest of the field, will 
not be so productive. The field is now ploughed for swedes 
again ; and the clay part is as healthy, and as likely to grow a 
crop, as that which has always been considered turnip land." 

It will not escape observation, that this land last mentioned 
was drained, and limed, and manured, and all the swede turnips 
consumed upon it by the sheep, who were, of course, folded upon 
it. This certainly cannot be considered as niggardly treatment 
of the land, whatever may have been the effects of the burning. 

Two other fields are mentioned, in order to show more satis- 



BURNING LAND. 15 

factorily the fertilizing power of ashes, because, to use his own 
expression, they were not assisted by any other kind of manure. 
What Mr. Randell means by not being assisted with any other 
kind of manure, will appear from his account. The field of five 
acres was a foul bean stubble ; the English horse-bean is un- 
doubtedly intended, which, when not cut close, leaves a large 
amount of stubble. In May, it was skim-ploughed to the depth 
of about one inch and a half, and all that the plough raised 
burned with fagots, and the ashes spread. It was then ploughed 
and scuffled, and rendered perfectly clean ; planted with vetches 
in October ; and fed off, the ensuing summer, by sheep folded 
upon it; and this followed by wheat at more than forty-five 
bushels per acre. Another field adjoining, of three acres, 
under similar treatment, produced nearly 'equal results, the dif- 
ference in the wheat crop, which was 7iot quite so heavy, being 
attributable to the vetches having been eaten off by horses 
tethered on them, instead of sheep. The difference of the results 
in the two cases — of feeding with sheep on the ground, or with 
horses — is quite worthy of remark ; but it is much to be regret- 
ted that the amount of difference should not have been exactly 
ascertained, instead of adopting the terms, "nearly equal results," 
and "not quite so heavy," which imply that the result was 
matter of conjecture, not of measurement, or at least admit of 
considerable latitude of construction. 

Another experiment of the power of ashes, unaided, to restore 
exhausted land, (more conclusive, he says, than the former,) was 
a field of ten acres of exceedingly stiff" clay, " in 1839, an aw- 
fully foul piece of two years old in grass." He ploughed and 
planted it with wheat, which was dibbled in, and twice hoed, 
and gave only sixteen bushels per acre. Afterwards the stubble 
was skim -ploughed, and attempted to be dragged, but so matted 
and heavy, it would seem, that this was found impracticable ; " it 
was then parted with forks, and burned ; and the quantity of 
ashes burned could not have been less, upon the far greater part 
of the field, than from 150 to 200 yards per acre." What is 
meant by yards, in this case, 1 must leave it to my readers to con- 
jecture, — I suppose, however, cubic yards. It was then planted 
with vetches ; but such a crop of crowfoot, charlock, and rubbish 
of all descriptions followed, that it was mowed and carried to 
the fold-yard. It was then fallowed and drained, and then, in 



16 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the ensuing spring, sowed with barley, which produced fifty-six 
bushels per acre. 

The next field consisted of thirteen acres of stiff, but tolerably 
productive wheat land. It was foul, burned equally well, was 
drained, limed, and manured, and produced an excellent crop of 
swedes, no turnips having been grown upon it before. " It has 
since grown barley and seeds, as good as I could wish," rather 
an indefinite mode of measurement, " and is now planted with 
wheat." 

All these pieces of land had the ashes burned and spread upon 
the land, with wood cut from the adjoining hedges, or with in- 
ferior coal, and the cost of the process estimated at £3 10 s., or 
about $17, per acre. 

In another case, the same farmer adds, "upon fifteen acres, 
which were dressed in like manner during the winter, where no 
attempt was ever before made to grow turnips, in consequence 
of the tenacious quality of the land, and without the aid of 
manure of any description except the ashes, and I have had a 
very excellent crop; and the most extraordinary part of the 
matter is, that, although the greater part has been eaten ofi in 
the months of October and November last, which were very wet, 
by nearly four hundred sheep, constantly kept upon them, the 
nature of the soil has been for a time so changed by the ashes, 
that I have been enabled to plough close behind the sheep, and 
drill the wheat as fast as ploughed." 

He remarks, likewise, what I deem of much importance, that, 
if the soil be dug and " thrown with the spade in large pieces, 
a double quantity of coal will be consumed, and the ashes of no 
more value than so many brick ends. The proper mode is to 
move the soil with a pickaxe, breaking it all the time as much 
as possible ; it is then put lightly on the fires with a shovel." 

What he says of the value of ashes is quite worthy of atten- 
tion. " That the mechanical effect of ashes, in rendering heavy 
land friable, has a great deal to do with increasing its powers of 
production, there can be no doubt ; but it is unfortunately as 
certain, that their effect in this way is not so great in subsequent 
years as in the first two or three, though it will always be con- 
siderable. This is accounted for by the natural tendency of 
ashes, like lime, to sink into the soil. In a few years, they 
become incorporated with a larger proportion of earth than at 



BURNING LAND. 17 

first ; and their effect in rendering it more easily workable then 
gradually diminishes ; but that their virtues are not to be attrib- 
uted to their mechanical effect alone, I have proved by wheeling 
ashes upon the surface of part of a crop of vetches, when the 
part so dressed showed, in the succeeding spring, a superiority 
which was distinguishable as far as the field could be seen, and 
where the crop was cut (green) while the whole was heavy, that 
part to which the ashes were applied was completely rotten at 
the bottom." 

" For those who, like myself, have to get a considerable tract 
of foul and poor clay land into a tolerable state of cultivation, 
there are, to my knowledge, no means by which it can be accom- 
plished in so short a time, and with so great a certainty, as by 
burning. Let it be accompanied in all cases by draining ; let the 
first crop be a green one consumed upon the land, and the land 
will be at once established, and may ever after, at the least 
possible expense, be maintained in a productive state, provided it 
be kept clean, and cropped in a fair and reasonable manner." 

We have likewise, in this case, the testimony of Mr. Eli 
Tabrurn, who speaks of having practised the burning of land 
for thirty years, and of having made it a regular course of farm- 
ing. He commences on the land by sowing ten to twelve pounds 
of the best trefoil seed, and from four to six pecks of rye-grass 
per acre, on the exhausting wheat early in the spring, having it 
harrowed and rolled in, the expense of which is amply repaid 
by the autumn and spring feed it produces, enabling a much 
larger flock of sheep to be kept. There is a twofold advantage 
in being liberal in the quantity of seed sown ; that is, in the 
quantity of feed, and in the increase of herbage, which mate- 
rially assist the burning, and much improve the quality of the 
ashes. It is highly necessary to have the land well under- 
drained before burning. He adds, afterwards, that if the cul- 
tivation " is followed up by effectual burning, about once in six 
or eight years, with an intermediate coat of yard manure, or 
folding, it would double the returns of much of the land of which 
he speaks, both in stock and crops. 

Another farmer, Mr. Eli Turvill, speaks of burning land as 

much practised in his vicinity. '• The fuel generally used is a 

good wagon-load of haulm per acre, or brushwood from the 

hedges, and a portion of bean-straw. Some burn the heaps at 

2* 



18 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

4 perches square, 40 per acre, and each heap is expected to con- 
tain three yards of ashes ; some in heaps, at 8 yards square, 
at 75J per acre, and each heap is expected to contain two yards 
of ashes. The whole of the ashes are spread, and the land fal- 
lowed in the usual way. It is repeated every four or six years, 
as may suit the rotation of crops. It is an excellent preparation 
for all kinds of corn, (wheat, barley, &c. :) on the thin-skin land, 
white turnips are grown well after burning ; it absorbs the 
water ; the land dries earlier, and can be sown sooner in the 
spring. The improvement on the crop amply pays for the out- 
lay, as well as leaving the land much better for the following 
crops. Burning is a fertilizer of the soil, and the oftener it is 
burned, the more it improves the staple and quality of the land ; 
so far from destroying the soil, it acts greatly to its improvement, 
and is highly conducive to the growth of the cultivated crops; 
the effects may be seen more particularly in the clover." * 

Such are the accounts of practical farmers, on this important 
process. Let us now hear what lessons science inculcates in 
relation to the subject. 

Dr. Playfair, the learned consulting chemist to the Royal 
Agricultural Society, says, — 

" By this process of paring and burning, injurious organic 
matter is consumed. Plastic clays are quite changed in their 
character, not only by having all their constituents brought into 
contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and thus undergoing 
change, but the clay itself acquires another character ; it becomes 
absorbent, taking up from the atmosphere ammonia, carbonic 
acid, and watery vapor, as well as affording more ready access 
to the nutritious substances which may be dissolved in water. 
But in this you see nothing is destroyed, and the inorganic 
elements of the soil are only brought more fully into contact 
with the absorbing organs of the plants." f 

We may next refer to the great agricultural oracle, Professor 
Liebig, on this subject. 

" The advantage of manuring fields with burned clay, and 
Ihe fertility of ferruginous soils, which have been considered as 
facts so incomprehensible, may be explained in an equally simple 

* .Toumal of Ro3'al Apiricultural Society, vol. iv. part 1, p. 267. 
f Lecture before the Royal Agricultural Society. 



BURNING LAND. 19 

manner. They have been ascribed to the great attraction for 
water exerted by dry clay and ferruginous earth ; but common 
dry, arable land possesses this property in as great a degree ; and, 
besides, what influence can be ascribed to a hundred pounds of 
water, spread over an acre of land, in a condition in Avhich it 
cannot be serviceable either by the roots or leaves ? 

" The true cause is this : The oxides of iron and alumina 
are distinguished from all other metallic oxides by their power 
of forming solid compounds with ammonia. The precipitates 
obtained by the addition of ammonia to salts of alumina or iron 
are true salts, in which the ammonia is contained as a base. 
Minerals containing alumina, or oxide of iron, also possess in an 
eminent degree the remarkable property of attracting ammonia from 
the atmosphere, and retaining it. Vauquelin discovered that all 
rust of iron contains a certain quantity of ammonia. Chevalier 
found that ammonia is a constituent of all minerals containing 
iron ; and that even hematite, which is not at all porous, contains 
one per cent, of it. Bonis showed, also, that the peculiar odor 
observed on moistening minerals containing alumina is partly 
owing to their exhaling ammonia. Indeed gypsum, and some 
varieties of alumina, — pipe-clay for example, — emit so much 
ammonia, when moistened with caustic potash, that, even after 
they have been exposed for two days, reddened litmus paper held 
over them becomes blue. Soils, therefore, which contain oxides 
of iron and burned clay must absorb ammonia — an action which 
is favored by their porous condition. They further prevent the 
escape of ammonia, once absorbed by their chemical properties. 
Such soils, in fact, act precisely as a mineral acid would do, if 
extensively spread over their surface ; with this difference, that 
the acid would penetrate the ground, enter into combination 
with lime, alumina, and other bases, and thus lose in a few 
hours its property of absorbing ammonia from the atmosphere. 
The addition of burned clay to soils has also a secondary in- 
fluence. It renders the soil porous, and therefore more perme- 
able to air and moisture. The ammonia absorbed by the clay 
or ferruginous oxides is separated by every shower of rain, and 
conveyed in solution to the soil."* 

I have gone thus at large into the subject of paring and burn- 

* Liebig, Agricultural Chemistry, Boston eel. p. 102. 



20 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ing land, and of burning clay, and the value of the ashes of 
clay, deeming that it would at least be found interesting to my 
American readers, where the process is certainly rare, if not un- 
known, excepting on peat lands ; and because, likewise, it is a 
process belonging to English agriculture ; but not with any 
strong expectation of its being adopted to any great extent in 
my own country, where land is cheap and labor is dear. 

The scientific solution of the operation of burned clay, and of 
ashes generally, I submit to those who are interested in, and 
competent to deal with, such discussions. The practical farmer 
will not fail to observe how much stress is laid in every case, 
with scarcely what may be called an exception, on the quantity 
of vegetable matter consumed in the burning, and going to 
increase essentially the amount of ashes to be applied. He will 
not fail to observe, likewise, the connection, in some cases, with 
the burning, of liming, manuring, and folding sheep upon the 
land, and consuming the produce grown upo7i it. If he should 
undertake to burn his soil, it is hoped that his attention will be 
specially arrested by these points. The value of ashes, the ashes 
of consumed vegetable substances, is not a thing now to be 
learned ; and how much soever pains may be taken in burning 
clay, it is quite safe at present to assume that the more of vege- 
table matter is consumed with it, so much the better for the 
ashes of the clay. The opening of clayey and adhesive soils by 
burning them, so as to make them easily worked, and rendering 
them accessible to air, and moisture, and light, and heat, is an 
obvious and decided advantage. In their ordinary condition, the 
cultivation is a work of great labor. 

The burning of the grass and rubbish upon the American 
prairie grounds is always followed by a thickening, and increased 
luxuriance, of the succeeding crop. This burning, however, 
rarely does more than skim the surface, and, except in cases of ex- 
cessive drought, does not destroy the roots of the herbage. The 
burning of the fallen trees in the new parts of America, and the 
successful culture of crops upon their ashes, I have already referred 
to. In the management of broom corn, (sorg/mm saccharatum,) 
on Connecticut River, a crop which leaves a large amount of 
haulm, many farmers have long been accustomed to burn the stub- 
ble upon the ground for the sake of the ashes, rather than either 
plough it in. or carry it into their barn-yards to be added, in its 



ADMIXTURE OF SOILS. 21 

decomposition, to their manure heaps, or to take pains to cure it, 
and use it as feed for their stock, for which, when saved in a 
proper condition, it is as good as tlie stubble or stover of Indian 
corn, {zea mays.) The farmers of Long Island, New York, 
have for years been in the habit of sending to the towns on the 
sea-shore in New England, for the purchase of the spent or waste 
ashes from the soap-boilers and others, and for which they pay 
what is deemed a high price. They apply it to their wheat 
lands, sown broadcast upon the young wheat, and say that, with- 
out it, they are not sure of a crop. The farmers in New Eng- 
land err in allowing it to be taken from them at any price, unless 
they can find a substitute in guano, or some other manure as 
portable. I speak of these facts, however, as showing the uni- 
versally admitted value of ashes as a manure, a subject to which 
I shall refer again, when the important subject of manures is 
treated, as designed. 



XCII. — ADMIXTURE OF SOILS. 

One of the most common and obvious suggestions, in the im- 
provement of the soil, is that of rendering, as far as practicable, 
plastic and adhesive soils free and permeable ; and, on the other 
hand, that of making those soils, which are loose and light, close 
and compact. In the former case, in order to effect the desired 
object, draining has been applied with great success, and must 
be regarded as the basis of such improvements. Without drain- 
ing, indeed, and a complete riddance of the superfluous wetness 
and moisture, little is ever to be hoped for in any case. In order 
to eflect the latter object, rolling with heavy rollers, and es- 
pecially treading with sheep, have been resorted to ; and several 
farmers, with whom I have had the pleasure of forming an ac- 
quaintance, abandon all expectation of a crop, unless the ground, 
after being sown, is thoroughly trodden by sheep, which tread- 
ing, for the purpose specified, may be considered even as more 
effectual than the application of the roller. 

But an improvement of a more substantial and permanent 
character is attempted by what may be termed an "admixture of 



22 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



soils; " by the additioji of clay to sandy soils, and of sand to 
clayey soils. In agricultural books and addresses, I have often 
seen this method recommended, with a great air of sagacity and 
confidence, as an obvious process of improvement, of very easy 
accomplishment, by persons who understand little of practical 
agriculture, and very imperfectly appreciate the difficulties of 
such a process. The transportation of soil is among the most 
expensive operations in husbandry, and can scarcely be expected 
to be carried on, on a very extensive scale. To convert a clayey 
soil into a siliceous soil, or, on the other hand, a siliceous soil 
into a clayey soil, so as deeply and permanently to change their 
character on any extensive surface, must be left to those great 
geological changes which are alike beyond human prescience, 
command, or control. Amendment, rather than change, is all 
that human skill and ability are likely to effect ; and I shall 
detail in this matter such examples as have come under my ob- 
servation. 

The application of sand to clay, like the application of sand 
to lime in the making of plasterers' mortar, has, in general, es- 
pecially if the clay is wet when the sand is so applied, a tend- 
ency to give it hardness, rather than to render it friable and 
open. Where the land is in a state of dryness, and newly 
ploughed, the application of a limited quantity of sand might 
serve to render it more open. That this would be the whole 
eiFect to be expected from it, and this to a degree uncertain, and 
that it would effect no chemical alteration in the soil, seems gen- 
erally agreed. That a portion of silica is essential in the forma- 
tion of all the cereal plants is established ; but in all clays there 
is presumed to be a sufficiency for this purpose. In peat lands 
it may be otherwise. A distinguished practical and scientific 
farmer, the late Mr. Rham, states that he has never known an 
instance in which the application of sand to clayey soils has 
been found to succeed in rendering them more porous. The 
expense of laying on the large quantity of sand that would be 
required must probably swallow up any profit that could be 
derived from it. Mr. Pusey, however, showed me an example 
in which a clay land field in grass had been decidedly benefited 
by a top-dressing of sand from a neighboring hill. Whether the 
sand, in this case, had any peculiar chemical properties, from 
which the benefit of the application was derived, did not appear. 



ADMIXTURE OB' SOILS. 23 

It is not so, on the other hand, with the appHcatioii of chiy to 
light soils ; and this has been practised in England so exten- 
sively, and with so much success, that I shall detain my reader 
with some prominent examples. Of the application of clay in 
the improvement of peat lands, I shall speak presently ; I now 
refer only to its application to sandy and Hght lands, with a view 
of giving them compactness. The object of applying clay, 
indeed, may be twofold ; tlie first to produce a closeness of soil ; 
and the second, that of obviating their too great dryness, the 
property of clay being to absorb and retain moisture both from 
the atmosphere and that which falls in rain. 

One of the most extensive applications of it, which I have 
witnessed, was on the farm of the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn, 
a place distinguished, under the care of its present noble pos- 
sessor, as under that of his eminent predecessor, for a most in- 
telligent, scientific, extensive, and successful husbandry; in all 
its various arrangements, and the completeness and extent of its 
operations, surpassed perhaps by no one in the kingdom, or 
hardly, indeed, rivalled. 

The intelligent manager of the place, Mr. Burness, states that 
he finds " the application of clay to his light soil of great ad- 
vantage. It makes the straw much stronger, with a better ear, 
and standing much better up in wet seasons. When the land is 
highly manured, without being clayed, the crops are liable to 
fall down, become lodged and spoiled." He adds, likewise, 
that he finds claying of great advantage to the turnip crop. 

The practice is to put the clay on the clover leys as early as 
the crop is off, and get it broken in pieces as much as possible 
before the land is ploughed for wheat. It is also laid on land 
that is under fallow for turnips early in the winter, that is, on 
land which has been ploughed preparatory to its being cultivated 
in turnips the ensuing season. This is done that it may have 
the chance of the winter and spring frosts to become well pul- 
verized before it is ploughed down ; and this he prefers to 
spreading it upon clover leys. 

He goes on then to speak of some experiments. " We clayed 
last summer four acres, and left two acres not clayed on an old 
sward and light soil. The clay was put on in .Tuly, and lay all 
the summer ; was ploughed up in November, and pressed," (an 
operation which I shall describe presently,) "and the wheat 



24 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

dibbled into the pressed grooves. In February, we top-dressed 
the six acres with good farm-yard dung ; and, as late as the be- 
ginning of May, I thought there would not be half a crop, al- 
though plenty of ends ; but toward the middle of the month the 
clayed part began to look of a much darker appearance than the 
two acres which were not clayed ; and, at the present time," 
(when he gave this account,) he thought, '^here was one third 
part more on the clayed than on that which had not been 
clayed, although managed in every other way the same." 

He goes on to say that, in Jarmary, 1841, he clayed some 
land which was going to be a turnip-fallow the following sum- 
mer ; and in the month of April, when he began to harrow and 
plough the land, the clay broke down and slacked like lime, and 
worked in with the soil. There was not much apparent dif- 
ference in the turnip crop that summer, as the other part of the 
field was sown at a ditlerent time, and he was not able to tell 
the difference ; but the ensuing year, he says, " the barley looks 
much stronger and stiffer in the straw, and stands much more 
upright, than in the land which was not clayed, where the 
greater part of the crop is down on the ground, and exposed to 
be rotted by the rain." 

The quantity applied to the acre is generally about fifty loads ; 
1 suppose single-horse cart-loads are meant. If more is to be 
applied, it is advised to make the application at successive times, 
as, in his opinion, more given at once would do harm. Nearly 
all the light soil on the farm of the Duke of Bedford, near Wo- 
burn Abbey, has been clayed, and a great deal of it twice ; and, 
in every instance, its beneficial etfects have been established. I 
myself can bear witness to the neatness and excellence of the 
cultivation, though I had not the pleasure of being there when 
the crops were standing upon the ground. The clay may be 
dug from the pit at any time most convenient for the farmer, 
and, if turned over once or twice, will mix much better with the 
soil, though, of course, the expense of the operation must, in 
such case, be increased. Mr. Burness says, his plan is to dig and 
cart it on to the field at once. 

Mr. Pnsey is of opinion that this substance, denominated clay, 
contains a great deal of lime, and is, in fact, a stiff marl. 

Another eminent Bedfordshire farmer, whom I have the 
pleasure of knowing, speaks of the application of clay or marl, 



^VDMIXTORE OF SOILS. 25 

customary in his ueighborhood, as varying from 50 to 150 cubic 
yards jier acre. He deems the smaller quantity preferable at 
one operation, as it mixes more steadily with the soil, and, though 
it may not last so long, comes sooner into operation. He has 
applied it to clover leys in summer, and to turnip fallows at dif- 
ferent times. He advises to have it dug in winter, and to cast 
it upon the turnip land in the spring, when it has had time to 
dry, and has become lighter of carriage. 

We have the testimony of another skilful farmer, a tenant of 
the Duke of Bedford, who has pursued the practice of claying 
land to a great extent. Not satisfied with the quality or quantity 
of his produce, he has clayed 420 acres, in every instance with 
good effect. Upon the gravel and sand land he has put forty 
loads per acre, containing forty bushels per load. On the moor- 
land, covered with rushes, he has put seventy loads. The time 
of applying it is directly after harvest, or in winter, if there has 
been a frost. At the former time, it is done with less labor to 
the horses and less injury to tlie land. The clay gets dry, and, 
as soon as rain comes, it may be harrowed about, when, accord- 
ing to his opinion, it will begin to act beneficially to the land by 
correcting the acidity, of which most lands have too much, there- 
by making food for plants of what was inert in the soil, and 
giving the land that solidity which it required. In one case, he 
speaks of witnessing the decided advantages from it, after a 
lapse of fourteen years from its application. He speaks further 
of having both marl and clay upon his land. He tests their dif- 
ferent (pialities by applying vinegar, and determines their good- 
ness by their effervescence. In the case above referred to, the 
clay which he applied would not effervesce on the application of 
an acid; but, on drying it before the fire, and then apjilying the 
vinegar, he found the desired result. This determined him to 
use it on the land, giving it all the benefit of the sun in summer. 

In another case, he applied, in September, 1835, seventy loads 
per acre of marl, blue, with some chalky particles among it, upon 
seven acres, and left seven acres adjoining unmarled. The next 
year, the oats were very good where the clay was ; the succeed- 
ing year, with tnrnips, the crop was good where the land had 
been clayed ; on the other land the crop appeared, and soon per- 
ished. In 1840, the whole field was clayed, and a large crop of 
barley was obtained throughout. He remarks, '• that land will 

VOL. II. 3 



26 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

not always show the benefit in the first crop after the applica- 
tion. Some farmers," he says, " prefer lime to clay, on light 
land." He deems this an error. Lime will correct the acidity in 
such land, bat it does not give solidity or compactness to the 
soil, but makes light land still lighter. Besides the advantages 
to which I have above referred, he considers the application of 
clay as serving to strengthen the straw of wheat, and to increase 
the quantity and improve the quality of the grain ; and likewise — 
certainly a most material point — to prevent mildew in wheat, to 
which the farm was formerly subject. He is of opinion, like- 
wise, that it prevents a disease to which turnips are subject, 
called, vulgarly, ^«o-trs and toes, which I think is more doubtful ; 
and that it supplies to the soil an element favorable to the growth 
of clover, of which I believe there can be no question. 

It may be thought, in this case, that advantages may arise 
from the application of marl — in which, of course, there is a 
considerable portion of calcareous matter, more active than the 
aluminous element — which are not to be expected from the ap- 
plication of pure clay. This would probably be the case ; but I 
have seen repeated examples of the application of pure clay, both 
spread upon grass land, as a top-dressing, and otherwise applied, 
which have been highly beneficial ; and where the material is at 
hand, and can be procured without a heavy expense, the practice 
may be confidently recommended. 

On the farm of Mr. Pym, in Bedfordshire, a very skilful and 
practical agriculturist, " the whole farm," Mr. Pusey says, " which 
is a light yellow sand, and which was covered with heath and a 
gray lichen, the gray moss of trees, — a kind of vegetation indicat- 
ing a great degree of sterility, — the whole farm has been made 
fertile by means of a dark gray clay, which is full of lime, situ- 
ated at the foot of the sandy hill, and the moderate dose of sixty 
cart-loads per acre is found to last at least twenty years. On this 
sandy farm, both turnips and swedes were ridge-drilled, and 
looked remarkably well." 

This practice of marling or claying light land has been long 
and most extensively practised in the county of Norfolk, a county 
which yields, perhaps, to no other in its agricultural improve- 
ments, which was the residence, and the scene of the labors and 
improvements, of that acknowledged prince of farmers, Mr. Coke, 
(the late Lord Leicester,) of Holkham, and which now presents, as 



ADMIXTURE OF SOILS. 27 

r have had the pleasure to witness, some of as good examples of 
intelligent, exact, and successful farming as are to be found in 
the United Kingdom. In the cases of marling, to which I shall 
refer, while the upper stratum, or surface, is light and sandy, yet 
there is found, at not a great depth, a deposit of clay or marl, 
which is proved to be highly beneficial, and which, from its 
being so accessible, is applied easily, and at a moderate expense. 

The substance applied is a bluish clay, and found from four 
to six feet under the surface. Pits are dug, about six feet by 
three, in rows, in a part of the field most convenient for the ap- 
plication of the material, and least inconvenient on account of 
the injury done to the fields, and two or three spades' depth of 
the clay is taken out ; the top soil, which in many cases is peat, 
being thrown back into the open pits. The whole piece thus 
dug over is sometimes converted into a plantation, where, the 
roots of the trees extending themselves, and the ground being 
covered with the waste of the trees, the soil thus dug over be- 
comes consolidated, and ultimately brought into a condition 
for use. 

In most parts of the country, and universally where the land 
is inclined to wetness, at least before the introduction of Mr. 
Smith's system of under-draining and subsoiling, in which all 
cultivation in ridges is disapproved of, fields are cultiv'ated in 
beds, or, as they are here called, stetches, varying in width from 
six farrows to thirty. The practice of one farmer, in Norfolk, 
whose admirable cultivation is second to none, 1 have had the 
pleasure of observing, is to plough two of these beds outward, 
leaving a deep trench, or wide double furrow, in the centre, and 
here, where the clay is near the surface, obtaining it to spread 
upon the land. In the instructive Report on the Agriculture of 
Norfolk, published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural So- 
ciety, an account is given of one enterprising farmer in Norfolk, 
who had applied 54,055 loads to a little more than 286 acres 
of land, or at an average rate of 189 loads per acre. In another 
case, a farmer clayed a thousand acres twice over, at the rate of 
forty loads per acre, in the course of eight years. Another 
farmer applied at the rate of fifty loads per acre. In another 
case, a great improvement has been effected by trenching, so as 
to bring the bottom soil to the top, and bury the top at the bot- 
tom. " In this case a trench is opened three or four feet wide, 



28 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and two spades deep ; the bottom of the trench is then turned up 
with a spade or three-pronged fork." The surface earth is then 
thrown back, and a complete inversion of the soil takes place. 

In some cases, men are employed, at a season when labor is 
to be had most cheaply, to marl or clay the lands with wheel- 
barrows, where the material is near at hand. The nearness of 
the material to be applied, its quality and abundance, and the 
price of labor, are all elements to be taken into the calculation, 
where any such improvements of land are to be undertaken, as 
well as the return to be expected, and the value of that return, 
when obtained. I give in this case no accounts, which are 
stated, of the actual or probable costs of such improvements, 
because little or no practical use could accrue from such calcula- 
tions in the United States, where the price of labor and the 
value of produce are so entirely different from what they are 
here. 

The application of chalk to the improvement of land is often 
and successfully made ; but, as I know of no deposits of chalk 
in the United States, such a process can have little interest with 
us. I have already referred to the practice, in Lincolnshire, of 
chalking liberally chalk lands, or lands with only two inches or 
more of decayed vegetable matter or soil, underlaid by pure 
chalk. The same practice prevails in Hampshire ; but 1 know 
no satisfactory reason to be given for it beyond that of giving 
closeness and adhesiveness to the loose and light surface soil. 
The effect of chalk is to bind land, without increasing its weight. 
The same may be said of lime, and of mixtures of lime with 
clay, as in calcareous marl. Though we have no deposits of 
chalk in the United States, yet we have an abundance of lime, 
and without doubt much calcareous and rich marl, yet to be dis- 
covered. The green sand of New Jersey, underlaying a large 
portion of that arid and siliceous soil, and extending along the 
eastern shores of Virginia, has already, in some cases, effected 
wonderful and valuable ameliorations, and those too of a perma- 
nent character ; and when its ultimate, and, if I may so say, its 
moral as well as its chemical influences are considered, may be 
deemed much more valuable than an underlaying of gold dust. 

Of the chemical influences of clay upon the soil, as yet, but 
little seems determined. " Potash," says Liebig, " is present in 
all clays ; according to Fuchs, it is contained even in marl ; it 



ADMIXTURE OF SOILS. 29 

has been found in all the argillaceous earths in which it has 
been sought. The fact that they contain potash may be proved, 
in the clays of the transition and stratified mountains, by simply 
digesting them with sulphuric acid, by which process alum is 
formed. Land of the greatest fertility contains argillaceous 
earths and other disintegrated minerals, with chalk and sand in 
such a proportion as to give free access to air and moisture.'' 

The remarks of Boiissingault on this subject are, in my opinion, 
well worth giving to my reader. " The qualities which we 
esteem in a workable soil depend almost exclusively upon the 
mechanical mixture of its elements. We are much less interested 
in its chemical composition than in this ; so that simple wash- 
ing, which shows the relations between the sand and the clay, 
tells, of itself, much more that is important to us than an elab- 
orate chemical analysis. The quality of an arable soil depends 
essentially on the association of these two matters. Sand, 
v/hether it be siliceous, calcareous, or felspathic, always renders 
a soil friable, permeable, and loose. It facilitates the access of 
the air and the drainage of the water ; and its influence is more 
or less favorable, as it exists in the state of minute subdivision, 
or in the state of coarse sand or of gravel. Clay possesses physi- 
cal properties entirely opposed to those of sand. United with 
water, it forms an adhesive, plastic paste, which, once moistened, 
becomes almost impermeable. With such characters, it will 
easily be conceived how it is impossible to work to advantage a 
soil that is entirely argillaceous. The proper character, or, if you 
will, the quality of soil, depends, then, essentially on the element 
which predominates in the mixture of sand and clay that composes 
it ; and between the two extremes, which are alike unfavorable 
to vegetation, viz., the completely sandy soil and the unmixed 
clay, all the other varieties, all the intermediate shades, can be 
placed." * 

An account is given in the Journal of the Agricultural Society 
of the application of bituminous shale to land, with very bene- 
ficial effects. This shale may be considered as an imperfectly- 
formed coal, a slaty stone, which is found on the opening of coal 
quarries, and is generally deemed an indication of the neighbor- 
hood of coal. A quantity of this substance had been thrown out 

* Rural Economy, p. 266. 

3* 



30 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

in digging a watercourse. An application was made, by the 
tenant to the landlord, for an allowance for removing this shale. 
which incumbered the land. The owner, upon examining the 
spot, found around each heap a circle of dark green and luxu- 
riant grass, such as would have surrounded a heap of rich 
manure, and observed that the frost was reducing the shale to 
powder. These circumstances indicated a fertilizing property in 
the substance, and he recommended to his tenant to apply it to 
the land. The result of such an application was a heavy crop 
of hay, and after-grass. 

I am mainly induced to quote this account for the sake of 
showing the beneficial results often to be expected from experi- 
ment and observation. It is too frequently that we neglect valu- 
able resources within our reach, as this farmer, in truth, proposed 
to remove and throw away that which proved a beneficial 
manure ; and the casual glance of an eye accustomed to obser- 
vation perceived its valuable but hitherto unknown properties, 
from the luxuriance of the growth of the grass around the edges 
of the heaps. Mrs. Barbauld, in her admirable lessons for chil- 
dren, presents a striking contrast between two boys taking a 
walk, one with his eyes open to see every object as he passed 
along, and the other sauntering along, as it were, with his eyes 
closed, without observing any thing. The moral of such a story 
is quite obvious. It would be of use to many others than chil- 
dren, who might find the means of all sorts of improvement 
constantly within their reach, if they would look after them, 
where now every thing appears barren and hopeless, and not go 
through the world with their eyes closed, or blind through stu- 
pidity or prejudice. 



XCIII. — IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 

The improvement or redemption of peat lands is the topic 
upon which I shall next treat. This subject essentially concerns 
the farmers of the United States, as, in many parts of the country, 
there are extensive tracts of peat land, now producing nothing 
valuable, which might be made eminently productive, as advan- 



IMPIIOVEMKNT OF PEAT LANDS. 31 

tageously to the health of their vicinity as to pecuniary profit. 
Upon a small scale, great improvements have already been made, 
in this way, in several parts of New England, within my own 
knowledge, with a skill, intelligence, and success, highly hon- 
orable to those persons who have accomplished them. 

One of the greatest enterprises of this kind, probably, ever 
undertaken by individual effort, was that of Lord Karnes, sixty 
or seventy years since, at Blair Drummond, in the neighborhood 
of Stirling. This was not an improvement of the peat soil, but 
an actual removal of it. Underlaying the peat was a bed of 
deep and rich alluvion. From the walls of peat, or the cuttings 
which appear at the sides or bounds of this improvement, — for, 
though an immense body was taken away, an extensive tract is 
still to be found, — the depth of peat removed, as it appeared to 
me, must have been six feet or more. It is stated to have been 
in some places full sixteen feet. It was necessary to obtain a 
command of water sufficient to carry the turf into the River 
Forth. A wheel twenty-eight feet in diameter, and eight feet 
wide, was employed to raise the water, which it did at the rate 
of six and a half tons per minute. The water thus raised was 
directed into channels cut in the moss, along the sides of which 
men were stationed, cutting the moss into pieces, and tumbling 
it into the current of water, by which it was floated into the 
river, and thence much of it into the sea. 

This was really a vast undertaking. Whether the expenses 
were met by the advantages gained, I am not able to say ; but 
a large tract of most excellent land \vas uncovered and brought 
into cultivation, and which, as I had the pleasure of witnessing, 
now yields as good crops as are ordinarily grown in the country. 

Enterprises of this nature must, of course^ be rare, and in but 
few circumstances practicable ; but such a work does infinite 
honor to the boldness which conceived, and the perseverance 
and labor which executed it. The interesting and extremely 
picturescpie neighborhood of Stirling is all classic ground, made 
memorable liy acts of prowess and heroism in the civil wars 
which prevailed here, and by dreadful and bloody affrays. In 
looking at this magnificent improvement of Lord Kames, in 
comparison with these memorials of revenge and hate, of misery 
and murder, (for aggressive war deserves no milder name,) I could 
not help feeling how infinitely higher is the honor of subduing 



32 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the earth, that it may be rendered more fruitful, and serve the 
purposes of hfe and happiness, than any of the triumphs of mil- 
itary glory, any of the bloody conquests of revenge and unbridled 
ambition. These serve no other purpose than that of scattering 
abroad agony and desolation ; glutting the most hateful passions 
of a depraved nature ; and marking their progress, not by the 
displays of genius and skill, and the brilliant and rich fruits of 
civilization and humanity, but by laying waste the improvements 
and refinements of science and art, and pouring out every where 
a turbid flood of unmitigated wretchedness and death. 

In England, Ireland, and Scotland, vast amounts of peat land 
have been subdued and redeemed, and, from being wholly waste 
and unproductive, are converted into well-tilled and fruitful 
fields. Thousands and tens of thousands of acres have been 
recovered in England ; and, in Ireland, improvements of this 
nature are in progress on a most extensive scale. The single 
territory of Gleneaske, near Ballina, consisting almost wbolly of 
peat bog, and which was to me the object of a most interesting 
visit, embraces about 3500 Irish acres, or upwards of .5600 Eng- 
lish acres.* This, a public-spirited company, called the Waste 
Land Improvement Company, and possessing an ample capital, 
have undertaken to reclaim and cultivate, and have already made 
a considerable progress. There is, indeed, in Ireland, ample 
scope for this species of improvement, as the area of peat bog is 
estimated at no less than 2,833,000 acres, almost the whole of 
which is deemed capable of being redeemed, and brought into 
productive cultivation. 

I know nothing in the United States resembling the bog land 
of Ireland and England. Much of it, indeed, is on a level sur- 
face, but extensive tracts of bog are elevated into hills of consid- 
erable height, composed wholly of peat, and that often, as I 
have seen, to the depth of six, and even ten feet on the 
summit. 

Peat, properly so called, as my readers well know, is a de- 
posit of vegetable matter, composed, in general, of a particular 
kind of plants, which have decayed imder water, and containing 
much of the element which is called tannin, which preserves it 
in the state in which it is found, often impregnated with iron, or 

* An Irish is to an English acre as 121 to 196. 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 33 

Other mineral substances, and charged with acids unfriendly to 
vegetation. In its natural condition, it produces only a coarse 
kind of herbage, distasteful and innutritions, or is covered with 
a short moss ; in Ireland, in many cases, by heath, alike worth- 
less for any purpose of feed. It is retentive of water like a 
sponge, and is very difficult of being reduced, so as to furnish a 
good bed for a sweet and healthy vegetation." In a wet condi- 
tion, it is scarcely accessible ; in a dry state, it becomes too light 
and hard ; and, though composed wholly of decayed vegetable 
matter, is in an inert condition, or deficient in some elements 
essential in order to render it productive. It is found of very 
different depths ; in some cases, only a thin stratum of decayed 
vegetable matter, of six inches or a foot in depth, overlaying a 
bed of white sand or gravel ; in others, a bed of black spongy 
matter, of many feet, and often of unascertained depth. 

Much of this land in England, Ireland, and Scotland, has been 
redeemed, and made highly productive. An eminent Scotch 
farmer, to whom I had the honor of letters of introduction, states 
that land which, in its natural state, was not worth more than 
sixpence an acre, in its improved condition is now fully equal to 
three pounds per acre. This refers to the annual rent or income 
of the land. This farmer has recovered two hundred acres of 
peat bog. Much of it was redeemed at a great expense, as it had 
been cut over for fuel, and it was deemed important to fill up 
the holes which had thus been left. Much of it was reclaimed 
at the expense of £30, or ,$150, per acre ; but the farmer con- 
sidered himself amply remunerated by the improvement. Other 
lands, which gave him not more than Is. 6d., or 37^ cents, per 
acre, now give him 12s. to 14s., $'3 to $3 50, per acre, annually. 
A similar improvement is stated by a farmer in West Somerset- 
shire, whose peat land, before comparatively valueless, now lets for 
£3 to £4 per acre. The improvements in the fen land of Lin- 
colnshire and Cambridgeshire, which is in many parts a species 
of peat land, have been followed by results equally valuable. 

The extensive tracts of bog land in New Jersey, lying between 
the city of New York and Newark, in New Jersey, over which 
both the turnpike and the railroads now pass, open a field for 
improvements of the same kind and of the most valuable de- 
scription. Partial attempts have been made already, a3id their 
success is sufficiently encouraging. But when the whole of this 



34 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

great extent shall be dyked against the tide, and the power of 
steam applied to its eflectual drainage, the obtaining of a soil of 
the richest description, so near to some of the best markets in 
the country, will be likely to afford an ample compensation for 
any expense which may be incurred. It may be said that such 
improvements must be very distant in a country where immense 
tracts of unoccupied land, of the richest description, remain to be 
had at very low prices; but the proximity to a great city, and to 
several large and thickly inhabited towns, continually increas- 
ing, in population, business, and wealth, with almost unparalleled 
rapidity, must give a value to such lands which can scarcely be 
calculated, and keep far in advance of the competition of even 
the most fertile lands in a remote interior. Indeed, a slight 
inquiry will satisfy any one that the value of lands in the 
neighborhood of our cities, for agricultural and horticultural pur- 
poses, iu spite of all the predictions founded on the improved 
and unlooked-for modes of conveyance by canals and railroads, 
has been continually rising, and has by no means reached the 
zenith. 

Three difficulties may be said to present themselves in the 
redemption and improvement of all peat lands ; the first is their 
wetness, and draining must be the first operation to be applied 
to them ; the second is their want of compactness, for they are 
often too light and spongy for the growth of plants, though this 
defect will be partially remedied by the draining of them ; and 
the third is the removal of some pernicious quality, some min- 
eral acid, which is prejudicial to the growth of the best vegeta- 
tion, or the supply of some element of vegetation which is 
requisite in the cultivation of any other plants than that of which 
the moss itself is formed. Peat, though wholly a vegetable sub- 
stance, and, properly speaking, a compact mass of humus, — in 
itself furnishing, under a proper form of preparation, a useful ma- 
nure, — is still deficient in the elements necessary for the growth 
of the finer grasses, the esculent vegetables, and the cereal 
grains.* What, in particular, these elements are, remains for 

* Professor Kane, in his instructive work on the Industrial Resources of Ire- 
land, remarks, that " it is by the grndnal formation and decomposition of this body 
(nitrogen) that the organic matter of the soil becomes so powerful an agent in its 
fertilization. The roots and fibres of a crop, left in the soil, gradually rot, and 
become thereby the means of absorbing from the atmosphere a quantity of nitre- 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 35 

agricultural chemistry to discover. The philosophers have 
approached the promised land, but have not yet got possession. 

1. Drainage. — Drainage is the first step in the progress. The 
land should be pierced by deep ditches of at least four feet in 
width, and the depth, and distance from one to the other, to be 
determined by circumstances. Peat lands, or bogs, vary greatly 
in depth — from a foot to a depth, in some cases, of twenty feet, or 
indeed much more, and beyond being sounded, and which, in 
our improvements, it would be hopeless to attempt to reach. 
The only rule to be given is to make the drains of such a depth 
as to take off the water completely from the bog as low as three 
feet. It seems generally advised to leave the great, and, if so 
they may be called, the central drains open. If they are not 
sufficient to effect the perfect drainage of the land, then side 
drains, not sunk so deep, but emptying into the main drains, 
must be made. It is impossible to lay down rules, applicable to 
all places, for the distances at which these drains must be made 
from each other — so much must depend upon the extent of land 
to be drained ; the quantity of water ordinarily to be removed, 
whether it be water from permanent springs or only flood-water 
from the hills ; and, likewise, the descent or fall by which it can 
be carried off". Two eminent farmers in Lincolnshire, one of 
vv^hom I had the pleasure of visiting, speak of making their 
ditches eleven yards apart, from centre to centre, and of four 
feet width ; but no arbitrary rule can be adapted to all situa- 
tions ; and this must be left to the judgment of the improver. 
These ditches are left open ; and perhaps, here, this is the only 
eligible mode ; yet, on two farms in Massachusetts, where, I am 
proud to say, the improvements in redeeming peat bog, though 
on a comparatively very small scale, for the intelligence and 
success with which they have been made, would do honor to 



gen, which is rendered available for the sustenance of the next generation of 
plants. In estimating the fertility of a soil, therefore, it is most important to de- 
termine the quantity of these organic matters, and particularly the amount of 
nitrogen which they contain. The more presence of organic matter indicates 
nothing ; thus a peaty soil may be absolutely barren, if the decomposition of its 
organic matter has been earned on under water, where the oxygen and nitrogen 
of tlie air have not access, and consequently only inert ulmino, destitute of ths 
power of evolving carbonic acid and ammonia, be produced." — p. 270. 



36 ELilOPilAN AGKlCULTL'llE. 

any country, — the bog to be drained, in these cases, being a 
sort of basin surrounded by hills which were covered with 
stones, — a ditch of considerable width was dug, at the edges of 
the bog, to a depth of six feet, and filled in with stones of various 
sizes, gathered from the adjoining fields, to within about thirty 
inches of the surface, and then the bog earth returned upon the 
top, and the whole levelled. Thus a double purpose was an- 
swered — that of draining the bog, and clearing the neighboring 
land of unsightly and useless stones. 

With respect to the position of the drains, some reference is 
to be had to the sources of the water by which the land is 
drenched. If it be flood-water from the hills, then it would be 
advisable, as far as practicable, to intercept it by cutting a ditch 
at the margin of the bog. If it arises from springs, whose source 
can be ascertained, then it would be desirable to reach these 
springs directly by a drain into which they might flow. If the 
springs are too numerous, and cannot be ascertained, then the 
best judgment must be exercised in laying out the main and the 
side drains. Here, the side drains emptying into the main drains 
are recommended to be made with tiles, and I have seen tiles of 
a very large bore, on the farm of one of the best farmers in Scot- 
land, — and that is perhaps as high praise as I can bestow, — em- 
ployed for the centre drains into which all the side drains entered, 
so that the whole work was completely covered in. The bore 
of these tiles was, I think, about eight inches by six, and consid- 
erable ingenuity was displayed in forming them by a method 
which I sliould find it difficult to describe so as to render myself 
intelligible. They were designed to be used with a sole, and 
holes were formed for the entrance of the side drains. They 
presented an example of extremely neat husbandry, and were 
effectual in relieving the land of a large amount of water. 
Where a solid substratum, whether of clay or gravel, is reached 
under the peat, tile may be used for drains without the soles, or 
the drains may be formed of broken stone, directly upon the 
hard bottom, as 1 shall presently describe ; but where the depth 
of the peat is such that a hard bottom cannot be found, tiles 
without soles, or drains formed of broken stone, would soon 
become useless. In the Lincolnshire improvements, open ditches 
are made so as to include areas of twelve or fifteen acres; and 
these, without any undcr-d rains, are found sufficient for the ob- 



liMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 37 

ject intended. Open drains are made, likewise, on Chat-Moss, so 
as to include about an acre of land. 

It is well known that open drains are liable to be constantly 
worn away by running water ; and the overhanging surface 
breaks down by its own weight, and fills up the ditch. The 
severe frosts which occur in the northern United States, and 
which heave the ground deeply, and the sudden thaws which 
are consequent upon them, do much to disturb and break up the 
sides of open ditches. To guard against this as much as possi- 
ble, it is advised to make the top of the open ditches very wide, 
and the slope of the sides very gradual. At Lord Ducie's model 
farm, under the care of that highly intelligent and practical 
farmer, Mr. John Morton, the slope to the drain (or the sides of 
the main ditch) receded so far, and was made at so small an 
angle of declination, that a cart might be driven upon it without 
danger of overturning. In most cases this could be done only at 
the expense of removing a large body of the peat. Whether 
this might not be advantageously pared and burned, and the 
ashes spread upon the land ; or made into piles, and, by a proper 
intermixture with other matters, such as night-soil, stable ma- 
nure, or lime, be reduced into a fine enriching manure ; or carried 
into the stable or fold-yard to increase the compost heap ; or, 
otherwise, be dried and employed as fuel, — must be left to the 
judgment of every individual farmer, according to the circum- 
stances of the particular case. In such a mode of spreading 
and forming an open drain, which declines gradually to the cen- 
tre, the very current of the water is a security against all inju- 
rious wear and tear of the sides ; and it is obvious, if the land is 
devoted to grass, either in pasturage or mowing, it may be made 
productive to the water's edge. Upon the beauty of the appear- 
ance of such easy slopes, when made with the neatness and 
exactness with which all such operations are performed here, in 
Great Britain, I need not remark. The lines of all ditching and 
draining here are made with mathematical precision, and are in 
general as straight as they can be drawn. I am unwilling to say 
where I have seen such operations performed in a way to induce 
one to suppose that he who made them always walked back- 
wards, and, after starting, gave himself little concern however 
zig-zag his course might be or at what point he should come 
out. Many of us, it would seem, have yet to learn that the 

VOL. II. 4 



38 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

most perfect mode of doing a thing is ultimately found to be 
the best mode, though, in the beginning, it may be neither the 
quickest nor the cheapest. There may be, in some cases, an 
extreme or excessive particularity or precision ; and we are 
often told of people who are more nice than wise, though I have 
not found this class very numerous ; but the exceptions may 
serve only to prove the value of the rule. 

Farmers are not entirely agreed as to the degree to which the 
water, in draining, should be taken off. Some persons contend 
that the land should be rendered as dry as practicable, while 
others maintain that it is quite enough to reduce the level of the 
water to a depth of three feet below the surface, and that the 
land will be benefited by the presence of water at such a level, 
as it will serve to keep the soil moist — I suppose, by capillary 
attraction, and by evaporation. There seems to be some reason 
in this argument ; and it is conformable to the opinion and prac- 
tice of one of the best farmers whom I know. It perhaps admits 
of one qualification. If the water of the meadow is strongly 
impregnated with iron, or some mineral acid, as may in general 
be easily discovered from its rusty or colored appearance, its 
presence may be injurious to the roots of the growing plants. If 
it is clear or running water, it is obviously not liable to the same 
objection. By most farmers, however, it is recommended to 
make the ditches deep rather than numerous. 

I shall return presently to the subject of drainage, and now 
proceed to speak of other processes customary in the improve- 
ment of peat land. 

2. Paring and Burning. — The land being drained, the next 
process usually advised is to pare and burn the surface, and 
spread the ashes. This practice is not without its opponents. 
If the land is to be covered, as I saw in one case, with six or 
eight inches of mud or soil, the removal of the coarse vegetable 
matter from the surface would be an unnecessary, and perhaps 
some would think, a wasteful process ; for, under such a mass 
of soil, its decomposition would be, though slowly, yet certainly 
effected. But Avhcrc a sufficient covering is not intended to be 
apphed to accomplisli this purpose, the expediency of paring and 
burning the surface is, in my opinion, determined. There is 
always a large amount of the coarsest vegetation, which, if 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 39 

turned up by the plough, would remain difficult of management, 
and very slow of decomposition, and much interfere with any 
crop which might be cultivated. But this being pared and 
burned on the ground, the ashes, which are stated to contain the 
element of potash, so useful in vegetation, furnish in themselves 
a valuable manure. In paring and burning, great care is to be 
used lest the burning should proceed too far, and burn deep 
holes in the peat, which would be both unsightly and incon- 
venient. 

3. Application or Lime. — The next inquiry is, What appli- 
cation shall be made to the soil ? Lime is very generally recom- 
mended, in places where it is accessible at a reasonable rate ; but 
farmers are not unanimous as to its necessity or utility. The 
effects of lime are understood, in what must be considered the 
present imperfect state of the science, to be four-fold. It oper- 
ates, first, as a mechanical divider of the soil ; and this effect is 
undoubted and valuable. The application of sand to peat effects 
the same purpose. Secondly, the lime operates, by a chemical 
process, to decompose and reduce the peat ; but on this point, 
chemists seem to hold a double doctrine — maintaining that, in 
some circumstances not very clearly defined, it dissolves and 
consumes, but, under other circumstances, it tends to harden 
and preserve, the woody fibre. This may be true in both re- 
spects, though we may find it as difficult to understand as the 
satyr, in the fable, did to understand how the traveller should 
blow in his hands to warm them, and blow in his broth to cool 
it. Lime is supposed to be beneficial in a third respect, that of 
furnishing to the plant a portion of food which it actually re- 
quires, an element of which its substance consists. This is not, 
of course, required in all plants which may be cultivated ; nor 
to the same extent in plants of the same family. There is 
another advantage supposed to arise from the application of lime ; 
and that is, its chemical effects in correcting the mineral acids 
which often abound in peat bogs. An excess of iron, which 
may be seen in the color of the stagnant water or drainings of 
these lands, is a common fault. The application of lime, in such 
a case, converts the sulphate of iron into the sulphate of lime, or 
gypsum, — that is, from poison into food, and wholesome nutri- 
ment, for vegetables. " Turf, or turfy soils," says Boussingault, 



40 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

" yield rich crops when we succeed in converting the turf into 
humus. By a happy coincidence, turfy deposits frequently alter- 
nate with layers of sand, of gravel, of clay, and of vegetable 
earth, which have been accumulated at the same epoch. By a 
mixture, by a division, of these different materials, preceded in 
every case, however, by proper draining, mere peat bogs may be 
turned into good arable soil. Pyritic turf, however, shows itself 
more intractable ; it rarely yields any thing of importance. To 
improve such a soil, it is absolutely necessary to have recourse to 
siibstances of an alkaline nature, such as chalk or lime, wood 
ashes, &c., which have the property of decomposing the sul- 
phate of iron which is formed by the efflorescence of the 
pyrites." * 

The experience of a distinguished farmer in Scotland, in the 
use of lime upon peat lands, is well worth quoting. He has im- 
proved two hundred acres of peat bog, which certainly gives him 
a right to speak. " The farmers in Scotland think that they 
cannot raise good crops of grain without lime, as ihe greatest 
part of the south of Scotland is composed of new red sandstone, 
grauwacke and granite, and therefore devoid of lime, v/hich 
forms a considerable portion of every fertile soil ; indeed, it was 
found that the soil in Dumfrieshire did not produce well-filled 
barley-crops until the farmers employed lime, which they now 
do to a great extent, and find it equally useful for potatoes and 
turnip crops, which is amply testified by the farmers' purchasing 
lime to the amount of £3000 annually from my lime-quarry at 
Close Farm." This value of lime to turnip and potato crops is 
a new fact. Certainly, I would hint not the slightest distrust 
upon the authority of this intelligent witness ; but matters not 
half so weighty as £3000 worth of lime, purchased annually, at 
one's own quarry, may, without our own consciousness, some- 
what affect the judgment. 

This farmer adds, " 1 have employed lime, as it is practised in 
Derbyshire, to great advantage upon the surface of moor land, 
(i. e. bog ;) but as it requires a very large dose of lime, it can 
only be done where lime is cheap, as it requires from 200 to 
300 bushels of lime, per acre, to destroy the great quantity of 
vegetable matter in moor soils, which it soon accomplishes, as is 

» Page 304. 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 



41 



shown by the land being soon filled with moles, which are 
drawn to it by the decayed vegetable matter producing worms, 
the food of moles." 

" In Craven, in Yorkshire, lime is employed very extensively, 
as a top-dressing, even upon a limestone soil. I have found that 
cattle feed upon pasture, well top-dressed with lime, much 
quicker, and that the meat is much richer and better mixed, than 
upon pastures equally productive of herbage." 

4. Rules in Ireland for Redemption of Bog. — The direc- 
tions given in Ireland for the reclamation of bog under very 
judicious and successful management, are as follows : ■= — 

" The first essential in reclaiming bog lands is, that they 
should be sufficiently drained. 

" The second, that they should receive an ample covering of 
clay, soil, or gravel, not less than three or four inches deep. 

The third, that they should be well limed, and that the lime 
should be applied immediately after being slacked, and mixed 
with clay ; if lime cannot be had, ashes are a good substitute.*** 
So soon as the ridges shall have had time to dry, forty barrels of 
fresh-powdered lime may be applied to the acre, and covered 
over with clay taken from the trenches."* 

I believe that a dressing of lime for peat may always be safely 
recommended ; but the expense would be, in many cases, enor- 
mous, and put its application quite out of question where a pe- 
cuniary return is expected. 

5. Application of Gravel or Sand. — Other applications are 
made with success. Common coarse gravel is sometimes ap- 
plied ; but the only effect to be looked for, from such an applica- 
tion, seems to be merely the mechanical division of the soil, and 
the hardening of the surface. The late Earl Spencer,f a higli 
authority in all agricultural matters, in the improvement of a tract 
of peaty meadow, which he had drained by means of a steam- 



* Principles for the Reclamation of Bog Land on tlie Cloghan Estate, by J. P. 
Kennedy, Esq. 

f The unlooked-for deatli of this distinguished friend, and active and generous 
promoter, of agricultural improvement, h;is been deeply felt, and has lofl a sen- 
sible void in the agricultural community. To the memory of his personal kind- 
ness, his beautiful simplicity of manners, and his eminent, attractive, and amiable 
4* 



42 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

engine, found that a thick top-dressing of sand improved the 
pasture more than hme, or any other dressing which he had tried. 

6. Application of Clay, or Marl. — But one of the great im- 
provers of peat land is clay, or marl. By marl, in this case, will 
be understood a substance composed of clay and lime, or a soft, 
unctuous earth, which indicates the presence of lime by its effer- 
vescing with acids. This, so far as my observation or knowl- 
edge goes, has been found invariably beneficial. A simple 
dressing of clay, to the depth of two inches, has given a desired 
compactness to the soil, and by degrees has, in the progress of 
cultivation, converted the dry, fibrous, and spongy matter into a 
rich black loam. This is represented to have been the effect 
upon the Lincolnshire fens, which have been repeatedly clayed 
or marled, though I saw small indications, although they are 
represented as peat, of that coarse, fibrous, light, and spongy 
character, which, by way of eminence, goes under that name, 
and which constitutes, it is said, nearly three million acres of the 
surface of Ireland. 

In many cases of peat bog there is found, underlaying the 
peat or turf at varying distances, a substratum of clay or marl. 
By taking this out of pits, or out of the ditches which are dug 
for the purpose of draining the land, and spreading it on the 
surface to the depth of two or three inches, the best results fol- 
low. The soil is brought into a condition for cultivation. It is 
comminuted, or decomposed, and made fine ; it is rendered com- 
pact ; it retains that degree of moisture which is useful to vege- 
tation, and furnishes a tenacious substratum for the roots of the 
growing plant. Its chemical effects may be considerable ; but as 
yet these are rather conjectural than ascertained.* 

virtues, it will not be deemed misplaced that I here record the humble tribute of 
my grateful and most sincere respect. 

" His saltern accumulem donis, et 
P'ungar inani munere. " 

* It may be interesting to my readers to have the opinions of Mr. Anderson, of 
Scotland, on the Uses of Lime in Agriculture, whose essay on this subject was 
rewarded, by that distinguished body, the Highland and Agricultural Society, 
with a prize of ten sovereigns. 

" Of the legwninoiis crops, we may say unhesitatingly, from what wc have 
observed, that they cannot be cultivated with any success witliout the previous 
application of lime, unless where abundance of native calcareous matter exists in 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 43 

The practice of one of the best farmers in Lincohishire, whom 
I have the pleasure of knowing, is described by him as follows : — 

He resumed the occupation of a farm which had been let to a 
tenant, and which had been all clayed over once. He fallowed 
it thoroughly, and, after getting some crops of cole or rape, he 
clayed it again, putting on about 300 cubic yards to the acre. 
Clay dikes are formed eleven yards from the centre of each, and 
are dug about three feet wide and four feet deep, which fur- 
nishes a large amount of clay to be applied to the land. He 
then went through a regular course of cropping, and clayed a 
third time, and obtained highly productive crops — forty bushels 
of wheat to the acre, and from sixty-four to seventy bushels of 
oats. He began to clay a fourth time, but not with the same 
success as before ; from which he inferred that the land had been 

the soil." (Yet it seems to be a conceded fact that the application of lime is 
most beneficial where there is most lime in the soil. This is a remarkable, and, 
in a measure, an inexplicable circumstance. — H. C.) "The bean, indeed, and, 
so far as we have observed, the potato crop, are exceptions to this rule ; altliough 
we have seen lime, in compost with earth or old turf dikes, give a most produc- 
tive and valuable crop of potatoes." 

" Whether spread on tlie surface of pasture-land alone, or in compost with 
earth, or applied with a crop and grass seeds, with a view to pasture, it never 
fails to call into existence the dormant seeds of the superior grasses in the soil, 
and to nourish and facilitate the growth of those that may have been confided to 
it by the agriculturist. This is a fact beyond all dispute. It is a never-failing 
fertilizer of grass land. The effects of lime on peaty soils are the following: — 

"Peat is known to contain two substances inimical to vegetation, and eminently 
preventive of the changes and interchanges, the compositions and recompositions, 
necessary to afford a supply of genial nourishment to a superior class of vegeta- 
bles. These injurious substances are tannin and gallic acid. But let us con- 
sider for a moment the composition of these inimical compounds, and we shall 
find that we have it in our power, by a simple process, to convert them into sub- 
stances most friendly to the advancement of superior vegetation, and in this form 
contributing highly to the fertility of soils. We find, on analysis, that they are 
composed of the following constituent proportions : — 





Carbon. 


H<jdro^en. 


Oxygen. 


" Tannin, . . 


. . 52.59 . . 


. . 3.825 . . 


. . 43.58.3 


Gallic Acid, . 


. . 56.64 . . 


. . 5.00 . . 


. . 33.35 



" We have shown tliat quicklime and hydrate have a powerful affinity for car- 
bonaceous matter and oxygen. This known, with the assistance of the above 
analysis, it is at once clear how tliey operate beneficially on peaty soils. It is 
evident that, by appropriating a portion of the carbon and oxygen, lime neu- 
tralizes t!ie acid in both these substances, itself becoming a carbonate ; and, by 
this change, substances that were formerly destructive to fertility, combining in 



44 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

sufliciently dosed. Indeed, in such cultivation it can scarcely 
be called the culture of the peat, but the actual bringing up of a 
new soil, wholly different fi-om the peat, and the cultivation of 
that. It would be a great error to suppose that the land in this 
case was not manured. Two or three of the crops of cole or 
rape grown upon the land were eaten off by sheep, folded on the 
land ; and other dressings of manure were liberally applied. 
Other examples of the advantages of claying peat might be 
referred to as equally decisive. But I shall quote the account 
given by Mr. Morton, to whom I have already referred, and the 
proofs of whose skill, and science, and success, I have witnessed 
with the highest pleasure, on that which deserves to be called a 
pattern farm. 

" The fens of Lincolnshire," he says, " have been increased in 

part with the lime, are resolved into their simple elements, and, assuming a new 
character, gradually become capable of sustaining an improved vegetation. Of 
course, as we have already shown, the lime will act on the fibrous vegetable re- 
mains in the soil, combine with them, and convert them by degrees into soluble 
and fructifying nutriment for vegetables. If, after peaty lands have been once 
limed, it should be found advisable, for any cause, to break up a lea, (and this 
should be as seldom as possible, such lands being better laid to grass,) it would 
be an improvement to do so by paring and burning, as, by the application of heat, 
a portion of the lime now converted into carbonate, from being so long buried 
and ill close contact with the soil, would be freed from its acquired acid, and re- 
stored anew to its original purity when first applied — or, in other words, be re- 
converted into quicklime, and would thus be rendered capable of exerting a 
renewed action on the peaty substances present, and, from its recovered causticity, 
again promote the various processes of decomposition and recomposition, so favor- 
able to the development of healthful and luxuriant vegetation." — Journal of the 
His^hUtnd and .,1gricultitral Society, fui' October, 1S43. 

" The decay of woody fibre," says Liebig, " is very much accelerated by con- 
tact with alkalies or alkaline earths ; for these enable substances to absorb 
oxygen which do not possess this power themselves. Alcohol, gallic acid, tannin, 
the vegetable coloring matters, and several other substances, are thus aflected 
by them. Acids produce quite an opposite effect ; they greatly retard decay." — 
Page 361, Boston edition. 

I give these quotations for the benefit of my readers. They are among the 
best scientific explanations, which we have had, of the effect of lime upon peat. 
It would be quite presumptuous in me to say that I endorse or deny them. Some 
of my readers will think that the explanations need explaining; and I am not 
without some sympathy in their difficulties. Most of us get on as far as the 
Oriental philosophy, that tiic earth rests upon tlie back of an elephant, and the 
elephant stands upon the back of a tortoise. But what does tlie tortoise rest 
upon? Here we are obliged to stop; and here, too, science, in all its pride, is 
often compelled to stop with us. 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 45 

productiveness, at least 100 per cent., by applying to the surface 
of the peat the clay which is found at depths varying from two 
to five feet below it. The application is made thus : Trenches 
parallel to one another are made eleven yards apart, and three 
feet wide down to the clay ; and then two feet in depth of the 
clay is thrown out, one half on each side. The effect of this, 
after the second year, is greatly to increase the productiveness 
of the soil ; in many cases, to double it." * 

7. Application of Mud or Loam. — There is another appli- 
cation to the improvement of peat soils, of mud or loam, which 
is, of course, beneficial. An example of this kind, which I vis- 
ited at Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire, is so remarkable for the 
boldness of the enterprise, that I must not fail to notice it. Mr. 
Gossip, having piu'chased 4000 acres of peat bog, in its natural 
condition comparatively worthless, has undertaken the reclaiming 
of it. In the neighborhood Avas the deserted bed of a river, 
which had been laid dry by the making of a canal, into which 
the Avaters had been turned ; and a deep body of silt, or rich 
mud, deposited in the river, was now rendered accessible. By 
constructing a temporary railroad, on which a steam-engine 
was at work, he was drawing out in carts this mud, and spread- 
ing it eight inches thick over the bog. The carts were drawn 
up an inclined plane by means of the steam-power, and were 
then carried along to the place of deposit, and their contents 
spread so as to cover the ground to the depth of eight inches. 
The rails on which the engine and its train of carts moved were 
formed by two pieces of heavy timber, on which an iron bar, 
forming the rail, was laid ; and, by a machine or crane, suspended 
from a frame or triangle, these timbers were taken up as occasion 
required, and, being suspended, were swung round and placed 
in the desired direction for the carts to proceed upon. The cost 
of covering the land in this way was stated to be £14, or $70, 
per acre ; but, when accomplished, an ample remuneration seemed 
sure. It was, indeed, a gigantic enterprise ; and the spirited im- 
prover had bravely overcome many immense difficulties and dis- 



* Tliis is an extract from a letter of Mr. Morton to Philip Pusey, Esq., M. P., 
given in Mr. Pusey's admirable Essay on the Improvement of Peaty Ground. — 
Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. ii, part .3. 



46 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

coiiragements in the undertaking. This was, however, in truth, 
the creation of so much land for cultivation, of which the bog 
might be said to form merely the floor, or substratum. In the 
cultivation of the land, portions of the bog would be brought up 
and mixed with the soil which had been laid upon it, and both 
would be improved. Such enterprises as these, undertaken by 
an individual, indicate the great amount of capital which exists 
in this country, ready to be applied when it may be advanta- 
geously brought out. 

There was another operation, in the way of improving bog or 
meadow, by the application of loam or clay, which I saw on my 
way to examine the one described. It was on a small scale, 
indeed, compared with that, yet, for the mode in which the 
earth or clay was conveyed on to the bog, was quite deserving 
of notice. The earth or clay to be applied was dug from a 
bank or side-hill, on the margin of the bog. Cars or carts were 
made, about four and a half or five feet long by about three feet 
in width ; and these were so contrived as to run upon two 
wheels, placed very near to each other under the centre of the 
carriage, and so fitted as to preserve the balance of the cart. In 
this way they were made to run easily upon a single rail, formed, 
by a flat bar of iron, or two bars placed very near each other, 
upon a thick plank, a foot or fifteen inches in width. This, it is • 
obvious, was easily removed by hand from place to place, and, 
once being laid flat, required no further adjustment ; whereas a 
railroad of two separate rails, on separate pieces of timber, re- 
quires a good deal of arrangement in order to bring the two rails 
even. In the case of which I am now speaking, the carts were 
guided by hand ; and, upon being emptied, were shoved back 
again by hand, in order to be filled. The softest bog, which 
had any consistency, could be easily reached in this way, and 
the simplicity and inexpensiveness of the operation seemed quite 
worthy of remark, because within the reach of persons of very 
limited means.* 



* I finrl, since writing the above, that a similar process was adopted, in reclaim- 
ing Chnt-Moss, by the distinguished Mr. Roscoe, in 1797. 

" Mr. Roscoe gave it as his decided opinion, tliat the best method of improving 
moss-land is that of the application of a calcareous substance, in sufficient quan- 
tity to convert the moss into a soil, and by the occasional use of animal, or other 
extraneous manures, sucli as the course of cultivation, and the nature of the crops, 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 47 

Sand is stated to hav^e been applied to a drained bog in Scot- 
land, at the rate of a single-horse cart-load to every square yard 
of surface ; but the land was so soft tliat, in order to prevent 
sinking, the horses had wooden clogs or pattens on their feet — 
that is, a wooden shoe much broader than the foot. The simple 
method, above described, of using a single railway easily trans- 
ferable, would obviate all the difficulty mentioned. 

8. Improvement of Chat-Moss. — I shall insert here the 
answers which I received from a very extensive improver of 
bog land on Chat-Moss, to questions whicli I proposed to him, 
acknowledging, at the same time, my obligations to his kindness. 

(1.) The condition of the bog or moss ? — It was originally a 
sterile, wet soil, wholly unproductive. 

(2.) How drained? — By close drains, four and a half yards 
from each other, using no other material but the sods to make 
the close drains, which are from thirty to thirty-six inches deep. 
The fields are one hundred and fifty yards wide, by three hun- 
dred yards in length, divided by open drains four feet deep, into 
which the close drains discharge themselves. 

(3.) What applications are made ? — After the drainage is com- 
]3lete, it has been usual to lead, upon each acre of land, one hun- 
dred and twenty tons of marl, from the margin of the moss ; and 
afterwards to spread forty tons of Manchester night soil.* The 
ground is then fit for cropping. 

may be found to require. The cost of marling was stated by Mr. Roscoe at 
£10 per acre, at which cheap rate it would not have been possible to have per- 
formed the work, but for the assistance of an iron railway, laid upon boards or 
sleepers, and movable at pleasure. Along such a road the marl was conveyed 
in wagons with small iron wheels. Each wagon, carrying about 15 hundred weiglit, 
was drawn by a man ; and this quantity was as much as, without the employment 
of the railway, could have been conveyed over tlie moss by a cart with a driver 
and two horses." 

This, to some of my readers, may seem an early use of the iron railways. 
Some form of them was adopted ten years before tliis, at some of tlic coal 
quarries. 

* It may be interesting to my agricultural readers to know sometliing of the 
amount of this manure collected in Manchester. My other readers, being fore- 
v/arned, are of course forearmed. 

The niglit soil of Manchester is taken into tlie country by carts, and must be 
removed before 9 o'clock in summer, and 10 o'clock in winter. (In Boston, 
U. S. A., they order tliese things better. The night carts are not suffered to 



48 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

Instead of the marl and night soil, Mr. Bell (the tenant) has 
tried four tons of lime, five hmidred weight of salt, and ten hun- 
dred weight of guano ; and this he thinks, from his experience, 
answers equally well, at less than half the cost. 

(4.) What crops are grown? — Wheat, oats, potatoes, turnips, 
and hay. 

(5.) What is the amount of produce per acre? — About the 
same quantity as from land of the ordinary kind of average 
quality. 

(6.) What is the condition of the land afterwards ? — Much the 
same as of other land after cropping. 

(7.) In what state are the manures applied ? — In the state in 



enter tlie town before 10 o'clock in the evening, and must be beyond the limits 
of the town before 5 o'clock in the morning.) Sometimes it is carried in boats, 
on the Mersey and Irlwell, and on tlie Bridgewater and other canals. It is 
mixed generally with coal ashes, and is sold at about Is. 6d. per ton, and applied 
to the growth of potatoes and other vegetables. 

It is ascertained that more than one thousand tons of this manure passed by 
the Cheshire road, alone, weekly, to be used for the growth of potatoes. It is 
deemed excellent as a preparative for the succeeding crops of wheat and clover. 

From tiie 16th to the 22d of August, inclusive, 1843, there passed througli the 
Cornbrook bars 647 loads, averaging two tons each, making 1294 tons. The 
amount of stable dung which passed through the same bars, in the same time, 
was 113 loads, averaging two tons to a load, making 220 tons. 

During that time the farmers were busily engaged in harvest, and of course 
few of them could leave home. When the dung carts were last counted in the 
spring, they were found to be double the number here stated ; and the annual 
return of potatoes from this source may be safely taken at 300,000 loads. 

The amount sent by the Cornbrook bars is supposed equal to all that goes by 
other roads and conveyances out of Manchester. 

Value and Use ofJ\''ight Soil. — One ton of night soil, mixed, as it generally is, 
with coal ashes, is considered sufficient for manuring three Cheshire rods, of 64 
yards each, or 192 square yards, for the usual course of crops, followed by the 
best fanners, on land of ordinary quality ; viz., potatoes, wheat or oats, clover 
and otJicr artificial grasses. 

Thus one ton of manure will, on an average, produce, on 192 yards of land, 
nine bushels of marketable potatoes, of 80 pounds each, which will be one Man- 
chester load of three bushels, or 240 pounds, on every rod of ground ; so that 
1000 tons of night soil, passing the Cornbrook bars, may be expected to send 
back to market 156,000 loads, or 468,000 bushels of potatoes, annually. 

These facts and calculations, with which my valued friend. Dr. Playfair, has 
furnished me, arc curious and striking ; and, if tliey do not fill a man with pro- 
found and grateful adoration for what Mather calls tlie wonder-workings of the 
Divine Providence, there can be little difficulty in determining, whatever may be 
'lis pretensions, in what class of animals such a being should be ranked. 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 49 

which they come out of tlie marl pit, and out of the middens, 
the marl being pulverized and spread pretty equally on the sur- 
face of the land, after it has fallen to pieces by influence of the 
frost and the sun. 

(8.) How many years or seasons since the application was first 
made ? — The estate has been in my hands twenty-five years, 
and during that time it has been progressively improving. The 
marl requires to be renewed about every ten or twelve years ; 
and the other manures as upon other land. 

9. Depth of Ploughing on Peat Soils. — On the depth of 
ploughing or cultivation, to be adopted in respect to peat soils, a 
diversity of opinion prevails among the English farmers. Where 
the depth of peat is small, and this overlaying a hungry, cold, 
white gravel, to bring this matter to the surface, and bury the 
vegetable matter beneath it, is to pronounce a sentence of long 
and almost hopeless barrenness upon it. Where the peat is 
deep, and the top is pared and burned, many farmers are satisfied 
with simply harrowing or scarifying it, and sowing the first crop. 
Where the land has been pared and burned, and a dressing of 
clay or marl applied, it will be safe to go deeper with the culti- 
vation. Here, however, the course to be pursued must bo reg- 
ulated by circumstances. If the crop to be grown is a grain or 
grass crop, it is not necessary to cultivate as deeply as in the 
case of a potato or turnip crop, or of any tap-rooted vegetable. 
The great danger to be apprehended, in the cultivation of peal, 
is, that it will lie too high and open, and not be sufficiently 
compact. Mere rolling will not bring it to a proper consistency, 
and consequently it is, after being sowed, often trodden by men 
and women. This method is not likely to be adopted in the 
United States. If the land is to be sowed with grain, or laid 
down to permanent grass, either for mowing or pasturage, and 
has been well dressed and manured, it is advisable to plough 
only so deeply as thoroughly to intermix the matter so applied 
with the peat. The roots of the plant sown in such case, ex- 
tending themselves into the peat, will dissolve and reduce it ; 
and when it comes, after a while, to be cultivated for other 
crops, it will be found in a fine and reduced state. This fact 
has been strikingly verified within my own observation. In a 
case where a deep salt marsh, a bed of almost pure fibrous mat- 

VOL. II. 5 



50 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ter, had been enclosed and embanked from the sea or tide, and 
was then, having received a dressing of loam of two inches 
thickness, from a neighboring bank, sown with a mixture of 
grass seed, and afterwards constantly depastured by stock, it was 
found, after a lapse of several years, to be completely decomposed ; 
and the spade which I thrust into it brought up what appeared 
to be nothing else than a bed of rich vegetable mould, without 
any appearance of fibrous matter, other than the roots of the 
grass on the surface. It is found, here, that the tendency of clay 
or marl is to sink down into the peat, and therefore the dressing 
requires to be occasionally renewed. They recommend to apply 
the quantity, which may be deemed ultimately sufficient for the 
reclamation of the bog, in successive small quantities, rather 
than at once. Sand and gravel, from their greater specific grav- 
ity, will, of course, have a greater tendency to bury themselves 
than any other applications. 

10. Manures for Peat. — Of the manures applied to the im- 
provement of peat land, night soil is deemed to stand at the head. 
This is not usually applied alone, but mixed, as above stated, 
with coal-ashes, or otherwise compounded with loam or with 
peat itself In the latter case, it is advised that the peat should 
be dry, and then reduced to a fine state, so as to absorb the 
liquid portions of the night soil. By whatever means heat can 
be produced in a heap of peat, whether by the interleaving of 
layers of fresh horse-dung, or otherwise, the peat will be reduced 
to a fine condition for composting. The subject of forming peat 
i^ompost will more properly come under the head of manures. 
Bone-dust is stated to have been applied with advantage to peat 
lands, but I am not in possession of any detailed facts or trials 
on the subject. Mr. Cooke, an intelligent farmer, recommends 
this application ; and Mr. Pusey, M. P., an agricultural authority 
r-ntitlcd to the highest confidence, has tried it with success. 
The application referred to above, of fonr tons of lime, five hun- 
rod weight of salt, and ten hundred weight of guano, is quite 
worthy of notice. The use or advantage of the salt I am unable 
to explain. This subject has been greatly controverted, and 
seems still left in doubt. Sir Humphry Davy inculcates that 
a certain amount of salt tends to promote decomposition ; but, 
beyond that, its effects are directly the reverse, being preservative, 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 51 

and preventive of decay. The limit, however, is not defined. 
Others think that the advantage of salt is to he found in its ab- 
sorption of moisture from the air. This seems a highly probable 
advantage in the case referred to, as peat lands, when thoroughly 
drained, are liable to suffer from drought ; and the good effects 
of guano are supposed to be considerably affected by the pres- 
ence of moisture. Salt is certainly conducive to the destruction 
of insects. In a manuscript lectin-e of Dr. Playfair, with the 
perusal of which he has kindly obliged me, in speaking of com- 
mon salt as a fertilizer, he says, " Liebig ascribes its action to a 
decomposition of the sulphate of lime in soils, by which sulphate 
of soda enters into the plant. Without hazarding an opinion as 
to the truth of this view, I would simply remark that, if this be 
so, salt should act most beneficially on the cereals and on the 
leguminous plants, because they are the great generators of the 
constituents of blood, gluten, albumen, and casein ; and these 
are the parts of plants for which sulphur is absolutely neces- 
sary." These conjectures, to whatever credit they may be en- 
titled for their ingenuity, seem little else than floundering in the 
dark. The day may presently dawn upon us. It is clearly ad- 
visable and wise to draw the curtain back and let in what little 
light may come. This little word ''if" is certainly one of the 
most convenient words in the language, and performs, in science, 
a similar office to "charity " in morals — that of covering a mul- 
titude of errors. 

The example given above, of the application of guano to peat, 
and its salutary effects, is the only one which has come to my 
knowledge. This extraordinary manure seems destined to pro- 
duce the most beneficial effects upon agriculture. What a pity 
it is that we cannot induce these useful birds to make their 
home among us, and save us the trouble and danger of a voyage 
round Cape Horn ! But they know our savage propensities too 
well ; and, if the doctrine of transmigration be true, they may 
have heard the story of the avaricious gourmand, who killed the 
goose that laid the golden egg. 

11. Cropping of Peat Lands. — The course of cropping of 
peat lands, in this country, is somewhat variable. In the fens 
of Lincolnshire, which, though peaty, can hardly be treated as 
bog; an eminent farmer states that, the land being brought into 



52 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

condition, the first crop sown is rape or cole, a plant very mucli 
resembling mustard. This is twice fed off, in the season, by- 
sheep which are folded upon it. To my American readers let 
me say that by folding, in this case, is meant that a certain por- 
tion of the field is enclosed by a light fence, — it may be of hur- 
dles or of twine net-work, (which is somewhat dangerous, from 
the sheep getting their heads into the meshes and becoming 
strangled, or tearing the fence down,) or of light rails, which are 
movable from one part of the field to the other, — so that, when 
one part of the crop is consumed, another portion of the field is 
enclosed, into which they are driven, until the whole field is 
gone over. This gives it a thorough dressing, especially as the 
sheep, in such cases, generally receive some grain with their 
feed. After this the field is clayed again, and then sowed with 
oats ; second year, wheat ; third, cole with manure ; fourth, 
oats ; fifth, wheat ; sixth, cole or turnips, well manured ; and 
then clayed again. In the same time, the farmer, of whose 
cultivation I am speaking, consumed six or eight tons of oil- 
cake, with about twelve acres of meadow-land hay, to assist in 
converting his straw into manure ; all which was divided, upoii 
his cultivated land, on a farm consisting of 100 acres. With this 
very thorough cultivation, he obtained forty bushels of wheat to 
the acre, and about seventy bushels of oats. In other cases, the 
course of crops has been — first, turnips ; second, oats ; third, 
wheat; fourth, seeds mown or grazed, — that is, the land laid 
down to grass ; fifth, wheat again. 

How far such a course of crops could be advantageously in- 
troduced upon the peat lands of the United States, I am not pre- 
pared to say. The culture of rape, within my observation, is 
unknown ; but the practice of consuming a crop upon the land, 
by folding sheep upon it, is an admirable foundation for good 
husbandry, and will be, I hope, one of the earliest improve- 
ments that we shall adopt.* 

* A curious circumstance is mentioned in a letter from Mr. Wingato to Mr. 
Pusey, in liis thorouj^Ii essay upon the Improvement of Peaty Ground, to which- 1 
acknowledge myself much indebted, which 1 shall quote : — 

" In Lincolnshire they never sow rape so early as May, but cliiefly in the mid- 
dle and latter end of June, and stock it as soon as the weather becomes suf- 
ficiently cool, so that it will not injure the lambs, which in warm M'eather are 
subject to have the blood-vessels of the ear much enlarged, and often lose a part 



IMPROVEMENT OF PEAT LANDS. 53 

In Ireland, the first crop usually taken from peat lands is 
potatoes ; aad these are generally grown in the lazy-bed method, 
to which I have referred in a former report. In this case, where 
the peat rests upon clay or a hard subsoil, the ground is first 
laid out in beds varying from four to six feet in width, and 
divided lengthwise by trenches which empty into an open drain : 
dirt, or bog earth from these trenches, being, as it is dug out, 
laid upon these beds. The seed potatoes and manure are then 
placed upon them, and covered with another digging of earth, or 
clay from the trench. When the potatoes, which are planted 
crosswise of the bed, in rows about a foot apart, have shown 
themselves above-ground a few inches, they are then covered 
with a second digging of earth, or soil from the trenches. This 
completes the cultivation. The land is the next year sown with 
oats, and sometimes laid down to grass ; or, in some cases, a 
crop of wheat is taken. Sometimes the old trenches arc filled 
up, and a new laying out of the ground, and a new trenching, is 
made, and the process, as at first, repeated. Where the means 
of improvement are so limited as in Ireland, and the social dis- 
advantages so great, Irish husbandry can be in but few cases 
referred to as a model. This remark, however, must not be 
received, as I shall presently show, without strong exceptions in 
some parts of that country. 

I have gone thus fully into the subject of the improvement of 
peat lands, because, in parts of New England and New Jersey, 
and other parts of the country, there are vast bodies of this kind 
of ground, waiting the resuscitating hand of intelligent cultiva- 
tion. I know of many distinguished examples of the most 
judicious and successful improvement in my own country, to 
which I have not deemed proper, in this place, to refer. The 
strong conclusions to Avhich I have come in the case are, first, 
as the indispensable basis of the improvement of such soils, they 
must be well drained ; secondly, that, in most cases, paring and 
burning, and spreading the ashes, are advisable ; in the third 
place, that, although lime may be useful, a dressing of clay of 

of the ear, if not taken off the rape for a few days, which generally sets them 
right again. It is generally consumed in the months of October, November, and 
December, before it is injured by severe frost." 

This is literally a rape of the ear, and is probably owing to sonic acrid matter 
belonging to the plant, which in its general character resembles mustard. 
5* 



54 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

moderate thickness would be still more useful ; in the fourth 
place, that the depth of ploughing should be seldom greater than 
thoroughly to mix the dressing applied with the soil, but not to 
bury it ; fifthly, that there is little danger of being too liberal in 
manure, and the stronger and the more active the manure, so 
much the better ; and, lastly, that, whatever crop is grown, the 
most advisable course is, as soon as possible, to bring the lands 
into permanent mowing or pasturage. Some of the largest crops 
of timothy or herdsgrass, which I have ever seen, have grown 
upon such lands ; and, where well reclaimed and managed, few 
lands will carry a heavier amount of stock. 

In speaking of the crops which may be cultivated on these 
lands, I should have added that barley is generally discouraged, 
the grain produced being represented as inferior in quality. I 
have no authentic facts in the case ; and this, after all, may be 
mere prejudice. 



XCIV. — WARPING. 

In giving an account of the agriculture of England, it would 
be wrong for me to omit the practice of warping land — an opera- 
tion which has taken place in Lincolnshire, and on the borders 
of Yorkshire, in the neighborhood of the Humber, a considerable 
river, which, at its mouth, opens into a large estuary, or arm of 
the sea. It consists in introducing the tidal waters of this river 
upon lands lying lower than the tides at their flood, and there 
detaining them until they have deposited a considerable portion 
of the fine matter, or silt, commonly called warp, which they 
hold in suspension. In this way, by degrees, a deposit of one, 
two, three, and sometimes more feet is made, which forms one 
of the richest soils that can be found, easily tilled, requiring at 
first little or no aid from manure, and producing the richest 
crops and the most abundant pasturage. I went over these 
grounds Avith singular pleasure, admiring the skill and energy 
which could boldly triumpli over many obstacles, and wrest 
from the dominion of the sea a vast body of soil, before this 
utterly profitless, but now converted into rich fields, loaded 



WARPING. 55 

with an exuberant vegetation. Three thousand six hundred 
acres have ah'eady been recovered, with a prospect of a consid- 
erable accession. These are certainly among the most beautiful 
triumphs of human art, and compel one to reverence that intel- 
lectual power which lies at the basis of such improvements. 

The River Humbcr, formed by the contributions of the Ouse 
and Trent, and several smaller rivers, opens into a large bay at 
its mouth. At its junction with the sea, its waters are said to 
be quite clear ; but within they are quite turbid, and a large 
quantity of fine silt, siliceous and aluminous matter, is held in 
suspension by them. Extensive tracts of low bog, and other 
lands, lie above on the river or rivers emptying into the H um- 
ber ; and the object has been to introduce this muddy water upon 
these lands, and there keep it long enough to give time for it to 
deposit a considerable portion of this floating substance. 

In order to approach these lands, a deep canal, in one case, was 
cut, at first for a distance of three miles, and since that time ex- 
tended to six miles. The dimensions of the canal were 30 feet 
wide at bottom, 90 feet wide at top, and 11^ feet deep; and a 
sluice-way built of stone, with two openings of 16 feet each, and 
four strong opening doors, was made at the entrance of this 
canal, to admit and control the tides. Most substantial banks 
were made on the edges of this main drain, and it answers the 
purpose of a canal for the admission of vessels of 70 and 80 tons 
burden, which ascend it for the purpose of bringing down the 
produce of the country to be conveyed to market. The lands 
now intended to be flooded are banked in by strong embank- 
ments, and a sluice-way is cut to the main drain, so that, when 
the water is admitted to the main drain, it may flow into these 
enclosed spaces. Here it remains in a stagnant state for a time, 
and at ebb tide is let off again, preparatory to the reintroduction, 
at another tide, of a fresh supply. When the deposit has become 
suflicient, the sluice-way is filled up, and the embankment ren- 
dered complete and efficient against the irruption of the tide, and 
the land placed under a course of cultivation. A good deal of 
ingenuity is required, in order to give the water a proper direc- 
tion, and enclosures are made within other enclosures ; and great 
care is requisite to prevent a too sudden irruption of the water, 
and to avoid opposing currents meeting each other, which is apt 
to occasion irregularities of surface and sand-banks ; and skill is 



56 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

required so to conduct the water, that the most abundant de- 
posits should be made in the lowest i)lace, in order to bring the 
bottom to a uniform level. The work requires to be done sub- 
stantially, and the banks made very strong, lest they should leak, 
or be burst through by the violence of the water. 

A well-informed man, familiar with the process, gives the fol- 
lowing account of it : " The water conducted by the main 
drain into the embanked allotment is more or less divided into 
smaller ones, called 'inlets,' (which vary much in size,) and con- 
ducted to different parts of the compartment ; for, wherever the 
current, leaving a drain, expands itself, there the greatest quan- 
tity of warp is deposited. As soon, then, as the plots of land next 
the mouth of the inlets have a sufficient quantity of warp de- 
posited, the inlets are extended by what are called ' call banks,' 
which, though much smaller than the others, still conduct the 
current onwards to parts not acted upon by the currents before, 
and so on, as required. One of the greatest niceties in warping 
is to have the land finished as level as possible, which can only 
be done by the strictest attention, and by proper judgment in 
conducting the different currents, which must not be suffered to 
cross one another, or to meet, as, in such a case, the deposit of 
the warp is less, not so regular, and of an inferior quality." 

"Care must also be taken that the currents should not be too 
strong, for in warp there is a considerable portion of sand, which, 
being the most heavy of all the particles floating in the water, 
sinks first, the lighter particles being carried on by the violence 
of the current ; consequently, a sand-bed is formed. These sand- 
beds, however, if covered afterwards with w^arp, generally are 
found to crop better than warp, which may be too strong. 

" With respect to the depth of warp deposited, it depends much 
upon the level of the land to be warped ; for, should the land be 
very irregular, in some places there would be a great deposit, 
and in others only, comparatively, a small one. It is generally 
advantageous to have the land to be warped as level as possible. 
A deposit may then be obtained, of from one to three feet, and in 
some favorable situations it has been considerably more ; but it 
cannot be generally calculated on." * 



* R. Creyke's Account of Warping. — Journal of Agricultural Society, vol. v. 
part 2, p. 402. 



WARPING. 57 

The amount of mud thus deposited in a single season was, as 
I was informed, as much as eighteen inches. Mr. Creyke says, 
•' that in one spring, during ten or twelve tides, he has known 
10 or 15 acres to have been warped the thickness of from one to 
three feet ; and that in June, 1829, a compartment was com- 
menced of 160 acres, which was finished in January, 1830, a 
period of only seven montlis. During that period, a general de- 
posit took place of between one and three feet : but that was an 
extraordinary season, and the compartment lay in a favorable sit- 
uation for being warped." 

The value of such land is very great. Bog lands, that were 
worth only Is. 6d., annual rent, became worth 50s., per acre. 
The crops obtained on such land are very large, and it is con- 
sidered as too rich for wheat, until it has been severely exhausted 
by other crops, such as potatoes, flax, rape-seed, and clover. It 
has been known to yield ninety bushels of beans per acre, and 
from three hundred to nearly six hundred bushels of potatoes ; 
and three tons of clover at a first cutting, with a good second crop, 
and abundant pasturage afterwards. 

This is another specimen of what may justly be called the 
creation of a soil ; for, where there is a rich deposit of three feet 
depth of alluvion, it is of little importance whether the sub- 
stratum on which it rests be sand, or bog, or stone. The tur- 
bidness of these waters, and the quantity of earthy matter held 
in suspension, are remarkable circumstances. It has been the 
subject of much curiosity whence it could arise. It has been 
said that it comes from the abrasion of a long extent of sea-coast 
by the waves ; but this woidd hardly account for it, for the water 
is said to be clear at the junction of the river with the sea. By 
others it is said to be the washings of the cultivated soils in the 
interior, brought down by the several rivers and streams which 
pour into the Huniber ; and the fact that the warp is most pro- 
ductive of weeds, and of white clover, establishes the fact of its 
obligation to these sources. The mouth of the Humber has, 
without doubt, for years and centuries, been the great receptacle 
of the washings of the upper countries ; and there they collect, 
and remain in a state of constant excitement and suspension, — at 
least the upper portions, — from the waves, and currents, and tides. 
This is undoubtedly the source of this vast body of silt, which 
is floated backwards and forwards by the flux and the reflux of 



58 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the tides. In some cases the deposit is made at successive 
periods ; as, where the productiveness of a field has begun to 
flag, the tide is readmitted, and a new dressing of mud is given, 
to recruit its energies. This can only be done until the surface 
has reached the height of the highest spring tides. 

It has been objected "that there is a species of rich loam, 
which, under the name of alluvial soil, is understood to mean 
land which has been gained, in low situations, by the overflow- 
ing of streams from higher grounds, or, by the artificial process 
of warping, from the turbid waters of muddy rivers, as well as 
by slimy matter thrown up by the tides, and afterwards em- 
banked ; that this contains a large proportion of vegetable and 
animal matter, which gives it a dark color, and produces ahuost 
inexhaustible fertility : but the quality of its products, though 
luxuriant to the eye, is not equal in nutriment to those grown 
on drier land." This may be so ; but it is an objection which I 
did not hear stated among the cultivators of these lands ; nor 
have I ever heard it from the cultivators of those beautiful lauds, 
in the United States, which lie upon some of our fine rivers, and 
are flooded and enriched by the deposits from their annual over- 
flowings. 

The substance called ^i■'a7y has been found, upon analysis, to 
contain mucilage, with a minute portion of saline matter ; a con- 
siderable quantity of calcareous and aluminous earths ; and the 
residue, mica and sand — the latter in by far the larger quantity, 
and both in very fine particles. That is to say, it is, and is likely 
to contain, a mixture of whatever has been brought down, by the 
rains and rivers, from the cultivated country of the interior. 

. The Delta of the Nile, and its rich banks and meadows, annu- 
ally overflowed, are composed, without doubt, of the same mate- 
rials, and their extraoiTiinary fruitfulness is proverbial. On the 
Mississippi, at the junction of the Ohio with this mighty father 
of waters, there is an immense tract of land, annually overflown, 
of the same rich description ; and when, as it may happen in tlie 
progress of time, those now vast solitudes shall be teeming with 
population, these great spaces of rich alluvion — when the over- 
flowings of the river, by embankment, shall be excluded, or oc- 
casionally admitted, at pleasure — will exhibit an unsurpassed 
productiveness. 

On the smaller rivers, — the Connecticut, for example, — when- 



WARPING. 59 

ever, m its occasional inundations, any portion of its waters is 
arrested and held stagnant, a marked increase of productiveness is 
sure to follow. The very superior richness of the meadows on the 
Deerfield River, a small tributary of the Connecticut, is doubt' 
less attributable to the fact that, when the Connecticut is at its 
height of flood, the waters of the Deerfield are driven back and 
held for a time stationary, when they copiously deposit the en^ 
riching matters which they have gathered from the higher lands, 
and hold in suspension. The great river, in its swift passage 
over the lands, leaves little behind it ; but it has occurred to me 
that, when capital has become more abundant, and the spirit of 
improvement more bold and active, there may be many situa- 
tions on the river where, at not an exorbitant expense of em- 
bankment, advantage may be taken of the flood to arrest some 
portion of the waters, and hold them fast until they have dropped 
their wealth upon the land. In most cases, probably, the great 
hinderance to such improvements would be the vast masses of 
ice which come down in the spring floods, defying almost every 
barrier, and sweeping ev^ery thing before them in their progress. 
Many of the rivers in England, which I have visited, are ex- 
tremely discolored and turbid. The amount of cultivated land 
may be a principal cause of it. All the rivers which enter into 
the Humber, — for I have crossed them all, — the Avon, near Bris- 
tol, the Severn, at Gloucester, the Usk, near Newport, Monmouth- 
shire, are all copiously charged with mud in suspension. The Ex, 
in Devonshire, the Mersey, and the Clyde, are very much of the 
same character. The Thames is a floating mass of impurity and 
filth. In order, upon the present system of warping, to effect an 
improvement, it is necessary that the land to be warped should 
be lower than the tide by which it is to be covered. But it 
does not appear to me irrational, or premature, to look forward to 
the time when this difficulty shall be obviated. As I shall pres- 
ently show, two immense steam-engines, one of sixty, and one 
of eighty horse power, which I had the pleasure of seeing, and 
of admiring their mode of operation, clear thousands of acres of 
land (at a moderate expense, compared with the good achieved) 
of the drainage water. Why, by the same mighty power, which 
is fast effecting immense changes in all the departments of labor, 
may not this mass of turbid water be thrown upon lands higher 
than the highest tides, and there held fast until it lets go the 



60 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

riches which it holds ; and thus, in all accessible places, this im- 
provement be successfully carried on ? It must be long before we 
may look for such great enterprises in the United States; yet the 
extraordinary value of land here, and the immense amount of 
capital seeking a profitable investment, warrant almost any ex- 
penditure ; and the permanent utility and beauty of such im- 
provements — I had almost said, their moral sublimity — ought to 
stimulate ingenuity, labor, and skill, in every .quarter. If he is to 
be pronounced a public benefactor who makes two blades of 
grass grow where but one grew before, what shall be said of 
him who, by the boldness of his enterprise, stays the proud 
waves of the ocean ; arrests the impetuous current laden with 
plunder, and compels it to disgorge ; and rescues thousands of 
acres, over which the waters of the sea spread only waste and 
desolation, and compels them to glitter with golden grain, — in- 
stead of the hoarse voice of the beating sea, to resound with the 
glad notes of harvest-home, — and the extensive plains to swarm 
with an industrious population, and the fields to be crowded with 
bleating and rejoicing herds ! 



XCV. — AN EXPERIMENT. 

I ought not to pass over an experiment I witnessed, in East- 
bourne, Sussex, of making a productive field on a bed of shingle. 
By "shingle," it may be necessary to explain, for some of my 
readers, that I mean. the heaps of small and worn round and flat 
stones, which are thrown up by the sea, and constitute often the 
upper portion of a sea-beach. A considerable piece of such land 
was enclosed by a stone wall, and mud and clay, to the depth of 
more than a foot, evenly spread over it. It was then, after being 
properly manured, sown with wheat, and produced a good crop, 
and, when I saw it, was covered with a good yield of grass. 
The material being near, the expense, though considerable, was 
not over-large, and an ample remuneration was obtained. It 
did not appear to suffer from drought, as one would liave sup- 
posed ; though, ordinarily, few things suffer from drought in Eng- 



STRAIGHTENING A RIVER. 61 

land; and it was done by a benevolent individual, the late Mrs. 
Davies Gilbert, who was full of works of active good, by way of 
showing that even the most barren spots might, by labor, be 
made productive ; that this might be done, in many situations 
the most unpromising, with a full return for the labor and ex- 
penditure ; and that, in many cases, all that is necessary, to enable 
the poor to provide for their own necessities, is to give them the 
opportunity of exerting their own powers. 



XCVI. — STRAIGHTENING A RIVER. 

On the eastern shores of England, near where the boundaries 
of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk, come together, and 
running for some distance to the north, is a place called the 
Wash, being a shallow and muddy deposit, which is left bare, to 
a great extent, at low water. Considerable portions of this have 
already been reclaimed. Where the River Nene, at the southern 
pai't of this Wash, entered into it, its channel was narrow, and 
crooked, and inconvenient for navigation. By laying bunches 
of fagots, at low water, in two lines at a proper distance from 
each other, so as to form two walls, — leaving a proper width for 
the river, and turning the channel of the river between them, — 
the course of the river itself deepens the channel, the mud col- 
lecting among these fagots fixes them down, and forms two 
solid banks ; and the silt, or deposit, collecting on the outside of 
these walls, soon rises above high-water mark, and presently, 
being protected against the irruptions of the sea by cross em- 
bankments, will be converted into productive fields. The chan- 
nel of the river is, of course, now made perfectly straight. As 
the silt, and slime, and mud collect among these walls of fagots, 
they are gradually raised to a sufficient height ; and, by the time 
they are decayed, the banks will have become consolidated and 
permanent. The river is navigable for vessels of a considerable 
size ; and the force of the current, being now confined and 
directed between these artificial banks, is sure to keep the 
ehaniiel free and deep. A large tract of valuable soil will thus 

VOL. II. 6 



62 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

be redeemed from the sea. The Rev. Dr. Backiaiid and myself 
were conveyed, by the poHteness of the superintendent of these 
works, in a boat, three miles down this artificial river, and sym- 
pathized in warm admiration of the ingenuity and success of 
this noble enterprise. The result of this great work is not 
merely to deepen the river, to render it navigable, and to redeem 
a large extent of land from the sea, but the channel furnishes a 
natural drainage for the very extensive fen lands above on the 
river, and in the vicinity into which their waters will naturally 
be poured. 



XCVII. — WORK IN IRELAND. 

In Ireland, on the River Foyle, below Londonderry, where it 
widens into a lake, a great work is going on in redeeming a 
large extent of land from the sea. At the recession of the tide, 
an extensive surface is left exposed. The plan is simply to 
enclose the land by a strong stone wall, or embankment, which 
will effectually exclude the sea. The work is as yet in embryo, 
though a large extent of wall is visible. I was told it would 
include full 2500 acres; but the source of my information was 
more casual than authentic. After it is once securely enclosed 
and brought into cultivation, it appeared to me there would be 
no difficulty in irrigating at least a considerable portion of it, by 
water from the neighboring hills. I do not know that this is a 
part of the plan. 

The example is one of bold enterprise, and is undertaken by 
one of the city companies in London, who have large funds at 
their disposal. I refer to it, hoping to induce my readers to 
reflect for a moment upon the essential difference, in the invest- 
ment of capital, between that which is accumulative and pro- 
ductive, and that which is unproductive and deteriorating. If a 
man spends one hundred thousand dollars in the erection and 
adornment of a house far beyond his needs, the capital in- 
vested makes no return ; the house is liable to continued wear 
and decay; and a large expenditure is required, not only to live 
in keeping with the establishment, but to keep up the establish- 



DRAINAGE. 63 

meat; uud, if some allowance is to be made for the pleasure 
enjoyed in this display of the owner's vanity, and gratification 
of his pride, it must be regarded as a pleasure not of a higli char- 
acter, and almost purely selfish. On the otlier hand, capital ex- 
pended in the redemption of land from the sea, or in the im- 
provement of waste lands, becomes at once recuperative ; the 
crops soon give a greater or less return ; production quickens and 
increases production ; power in this case, as in many others, 
grows by the action of its own energies ; useful labor is called 
out ; human food is increased, and human comfort is provided 
for. The eye of the observing traveller rests with grateful 
delight upon these beneficent triumphs of human art and in- 
dustry. The performers of such good and, oftentimes, grand 
works, in the works themselves, erect to their own honor mon- 
uments far more glorious, in the estimation of true philosophy, 
than equestrian statnes, or marble mausoleums, or even the 
mighty pyramids of Cairo — the altars where human toil and life 
were recklessly and criminally sacrificed to despotic pride, and 
to an ambition of renown which has no place among those vir- 
tues which truly adorn and elevate our nature ; a desire of a 
vain immortality, which, in this case, seems to have met with a 
remarkable moral retribution, in that even the names of the 
founders of these wonderful erections remain beyond the de- 
ciphering of human skill. 



XCVIII. — DRAINAGE. 

I come now to speak of one of the cardinal improvements in 
English husbandry. I mean the drainage of the soil. 

1. The Importance of Drainage. — It happens with water, 
as with that other most important and useful element in nature, 
fire, that, while under certain conditions it is indispensable and 
most beneficial, under others it becomes prejudicial and destruc- 
tive. Water is an essential element in vegetation, and, supplied 
under proper and favorable circumstances, is most conducive to 



64 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

its luxuriance and productiveness ; but in excess, it is either 
wholly destractive, or produces only that which is worthless or 
pernicious. Every one knows this ; but it does not come within 
my province to go into a philosophical discussion of the proper- 
ties of water as a constituent of vegetation, or of the modes in 
which it is supposed to operate. An excess of water in the soil 
prevents the access of the air, which is essential to the health of 
the plants. It reduces the temperature when it becomes stag- 
nant in the soil. It favors the approach of frost, so that crops 
are often cut off, in low places, which, but for the wetness of 
the soil, would otherwise have been fully and seasonably ma- 
tured. It renders the working of the soil difficult and labo- 
rious, and very often impossible. 

The removal of an excess of water from the land is the object 
of drainage, as the throwing of water over the land is the object 
of that other great and most beneficial operation of husbandry, 
irrigation, of which I shall speak in its proper place. 

Lands may be injured from excess of water in three different 
ways ; first, from being flooded by the tides of the sea ; second, 
by permanent springs in the land ; and, third, from the retentive 
character of the soil, holding fast, like a sponge, the rains which 
fall ; and perhaps from the formation of the land — the water 
having no chance to escape. These causes may operate singly, 
or, to a degree, in combination. • There are cases in which, where 
the sea itself does not reach the lands directly, yet it forces back 
sometimes a fresh- water stream, by which the land is flooded, 
and the same injurious effects are produced. 

Much land in every country is perfectly useless and worthless 
from these several causes. The question, however, whether the 
drainage of it will prove remunerative, involves a variety of con- 
siderations, and many of a strictly local character, which must 
be taken into view by persons who propose to undertake the 
drainage of their lands, but upon which it would be impossible 
for me to enter. There are considerations, connected with the 
subject, which are not to be measured by a pecuniary standard, 
but whose importance cannot be over-estimated. I mean, for 
example, such as refer to the health of the country. The fogs 
and dampness, arising from wet and undrained lands, are a pro- 
lific source of ill health and sickness. Tracts of land in Eng- 
land, which were liable to fevers and agues, and consumptions 



DRAINAGE. 65 

by a complete drainage have become salubrious, and are now 
upon an average standard of longevity with other parts of the 
country. The question of the expediency of draining, in some 
cases, resolves itself, as in the case of the redemption of peat or 
other waste lands, into a question of the value of the land after 
being reclaimed. The cost of drainage may, in some instances, 
be more than the land is worth after the drainage is effected, or 
it may be quite equal to its value ; but, if it be worth nothing in 
its undrained condition, the operation may be considered as an 
actual purchase of the land ; and the real satisfaction which a 
good mind finds in effecting such improvements, and the useful 
employment of labor, and the productive investment of capital, 
may all operate as reasonable and strong inducements to such 
undertakings. 

2. Extent of Drainage, and Embankment against the Sea. 
— The tracts of land which have been redeemed by drainage of 
the first kind referred to, in England, are very great. I mean 
now to speak of lands which were either covered by the sea at 
every tide, or by occasional overflowings, or by the rivers which 
bounded these lands being, at occasional high tides, forced back, 
to the overflowing of the adjacent lands, or, otherwise, by the 
waters, from higher grounds, which flowed into these lands, not 
finding a ready exit into the sea. These lands, which were 
thus rendered mere bogs, in many cases scarcely accessible, or, 
otherwise, only wastes producing nothing, have, by drainage 
and cultivation, become the most productive in the kingdom. 

I have a good deal of diffidence in stating the extent of these 
redeemed lands, because I have not found it possible to authen- 
ticate, as fully and as exactly as I could wish, the statements 
which have been made to me, and I am a little at a loss as to 
the geography of the district. The level of Ancholme district 
is represented as containing 50,000 acres.* This amount is 

* " The level of Ancholme consists of a tract of low land, situated on the soutli 
Bide of the River Iluinber, about ten miles below its junction with the River 
Trent, and contains about 50,000 acres of land, of which only about 17,000 acres 
are subject to taxation. The district is bounded on the east by an elevated ridge 
of chalk hills, extending' from the Humber, for a distance of nearly twenty-four 
miles north and south; about 100,000 acres of the land of this ridge drain into 
the Ancholme. On the west tli^rn is an inferior ridce of oolite and saiidv lime- 

c* 



66 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

liable to be covered by the streams flowing into it in time of 
flood. "The Ancholme valley, for the most part, lies below the 
level of high-water mark of spring tides. It is probable that at 
no very distant period it was overflowed by the tide. The mouth 
of the River Ancholme, emptying into the Humber, would fre- 
(|uently become blocked up by the deposit of alluvial matter, 
and thus the drainage water from the interior would be ob- 
structed, so that, at times, the level would be completely inun- 
dated, and, even under the most favorable circumstances, Avould 
never be properly drained, and necessarily become a vast stag- 
nant marsh, more or less intersected with streams and pools of 
water, according to the particular state of the season, and the 
ever-varying condition of the River Humber, into which it dis- 
charges its water." The Bedfordshire level is stated to contain 
300,000 acres ; and a company is now formed, who propose to 
redeem 150,000 acres more. They have already begun their 
operations. All these tracts are on the north and north-eastern 
side of England, and adjacent to each other. 

1 have been through a very considerable portion of this dis- 
trict ; and, where formerly the lands were covered with the tides, 
or otherwise rendered inaccessible or incapable of cultivation 
from their wetness, populous villages are now found, and farm- 
houses, surrounded with cultivated fields in a state of the highest 
productiveness, meet the eye continually. The whole amount 
drained and redeemed is stated to be full 500,000 acres. 

3. The Ancholme Drainage. — The commencement of the 
a;reat work by which these lands have been drained dates back 
to an early period. There are said to exist in England, particu- 
larly on the banks of the Thames, works of embankments, to 
exclude the water from the land, which were made by the Ro- 
mans. The plan for redeeming these fen lands was laid, and its 
execution commenced, as early as the middle of the thirteenth 
i-entury. Its most important improvements were commenced 

.stono hills, which divides it from the valley of the Trent ; about 50,000 acres of 
tliis ridiTc drain also into tlie Ancholme. On the south It is bounded by a 
low ridtre of diluvial hills, which divides it from the valley of the William ; and 
(in the north is situated the River Humber ; so that the total quantity of land 
drainin(:r into the Ancliolme may be said to be about 200,000 acres." — Jowticd 
of Society of Civil Engineers. 



DRAINAGE. 67 

later than the middle of the last century. Some of the earliest 
improvements were the work of individual enterprise. A gentle- 
man of capital undertook the draining of a large extent of land, 
upon condition that, if he effected the drainage, according to his 
contract, a certain amount of the land so redeemed Avas to 
accrue to him, by way of remuneration. Later improvements 
were effected under the direction of companies associated by an 
act of government for that purpose, and empowered to assess a 
tax for the accomplishment of their object. 

If we take the district of the Ancholme River, and describe it, 
it will present a favorable opportunity for considering the whole 
subject. The Ancholme is a small and sluggish river, emptying 
into the Humber at some distance from the sea, but not above 
the influence of the tides. The Humber, being a larger river 
than the Ancholme, in its high course of tides forced back the 
River Ancholme on to the flat lands in its neighborhood, to their 
ruin as far as cultivation was concerned ; and the level was often 
flooded by water from the hills, brought down by several streams 
which emptied into the Ancholme. The River Ancholme was 
likewise used for purposes of navigation, several villages being 
reached by it. Three points were then to be kept in view, in 
any improvement which should be undertaken. The first was, 
to preserve the navigation of the river ; the second, to exclude 
the tides ; the third, to prevent the land from being flooded from 
the rivers or small streams which came from the neighboring 
hills upon the level. Under the direction of scientific and skil- 
ful engineers, these objects have been accomplished. 

By a suflicient embankment at the mouth of the river, the 
entrance of the tides was effectually prevented. But a sluice- 
way, or lock, was constructed here for the admission of vessels of 
such size as the river was capable of receiving, and the bed of 
the river was straightened and enlarged. In order to receive the 
waters from the high grounds, canals of a suitable size were 
formed on each side of the level, which intercepted the water in 
its descent, (and are vulgarly called catch-drains^) and conveyed 
it to a point where it was poured into the Humber, and so 
reached the sea. In order to prevent the dirt washed from the 
neighboring high lands from being poured into this canal, weirs, 
or dams, were raised across these small streams, in the course of 
their descent, where this mud would be deposited ; and it might 



68 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

then be taken out by the farmers for the purpose of enriching 
their land. These "catch-water drains," as they may be called, 
afford another singular advantage. The water received in them 
is fresh water, and they furnish an ample supply, in their whole 
course, for purposes for which it may be wanted. It has been 
suggested that, in some cases, it might be used for purposes of 
irrigation, though I saw no examples of this application of it. 
An eminent engineer, Mr. Smith, of Deanston, has suggested 
that " it would be practicable to make use of the high land water, 
collected in the catch-water drains, for working water-wheels, 
either for draining the lower fens, if any existed, where natural 
drainage was impracticable, or for other useful purposes, either 
of agriculture or manufactures." 

At the sluice-way or entrance into the Ancholme, large gates 
are erected, which open with the ebbing, and close with the 
flooding tide, thus preventing the access of the tide, excepting at 
pleasure, and favoring the egress of superfluous water at the 
descent of the tide. It is deemed desirable, in these cases, that 
water in the main drains should never rise higher than within 
four feet of the surface of the soil. This, while it leaves an 
ample soil for cultivation, gives an opportunity of cutting cross 
drains into the main drain, and at right angles with it, where 
there is any superfluous water in the soil to be drawn ofl". To 
this kind of drains I have already referred, in speaking of the 
redemption of peat lands in Lincolnshire. 

4. Embankments against a River, and Discharge of Water 
j;y Steam-Engines. — There are cases in which a river requires 
to be embanked out, and its overflowings upon the adjoining 
lands prevented, by what, in a similar case at New Orleans, is 
called a levee. Here the great River Mississippi flows high 
above the city ; and the city is protected from its invasion by a 
high embankment, partly natural — that is, made from the deposits 
of the river, — and partly artificial, and extending high above the 
city, and guarded against being broken in upon with the greatest 
care. In a similar way, a river is sometimes conducted through 
a drained fen, the surface of which is below the river. The 
course of the river is straightened by high embankments being 
thrown up. The earth to form these embankments is taken 
from the drained side of the embankment ; and thus a deep 



DRAINAGE. 69 

ditch is formed, at its base, through its whole length. This 
ditch itself serves to receive the waste waters from the drained 
land ; but as they have no chance of escape, unless, in some 
cases, by a tunnel formed under the river, and conveying them to 
a lower locality, and when rising nearer than within four feet of 
the surface of the drained land, affecting injuriously its condition, 
a steam-engine is employed to raise and discharge the water, and 
thus relieve the land from it. This was formerly attempted by 
windmills, which could of course not be depended on, and were 
both expensive and ineffectual. It is now done by steam-engines. 
These move a power-wheel of large diameter, which revolves in 
a chamber walled with stone, resembling the lock of a canal, in 
which it moves with great precision, and so as barely to clear 
the sides. The water is forced up on the paddles, and, at a suf- 
ficient height, is thrown over the bank or gate into the river. 

5. The Deeping Fen. — At Podes-hole, which 1 visited, there 
are in operation two steam-engines of the most beautiful con- 
struction — the one of sixty, and the other of eighty horse power ; 
and these are effectual to the draining of 40,000 acres of what 
is called the Deeping Fen. The upper part of these lands, 
which are thus drained, was peat meadow ; the lovver part was 
salt marsh. These lands are now in the highest degree produc- 
tive ; producing fine crops of wheat, oats, potatoes, and swedes, 
besides furnishing the very best of pasturage and hay land. 
There is found to be a difi'erence in the qualities of the grass; 
the lowest lands are fed with sheep, and the highest with cattle. 
Barley is not cultivated on these lands ; but, besides the crops 
above mentioned, mustard, woad, and chiccory, are extensively 
cultivated. Four crops of wheat have been taken in succession 
from these lands, without manure. As the last crop was less 
than the former, the land was then laid down to grass. The 
rent of these lands is 38s. and 40s. per acre ; but this must be 
considered as a moderate rent for lands so valuable. By means 
of these steam-engines, the water is kept down to the desired 
level. It is not foimd necessary to work them at all times, and 
the power is sufficient to meet any extraordinary emergency. 

6. The Muston Drainage. — These improvements are so 
extraordinary, and I may say so truly magnificent, that I shall 



70 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

be excused for dwelling longer upon them, and for giving some 
communications, with which my personal friend, Sir George 
Cayley, who has been largely concerned, has been kind enough 
to favor me. 

" The general plan of the Muston drainage, intended to drain 
about 10,000 acres, near Scarborough, might be thus stated. 
The small rivers, Hartford and Derwent, with several brooks, 
held their courses through an extensive marsh, and, in times of 
heavy rain, they overflowed their banks, and flooded the land to 
a great extent. No expense whatever was incurred for cutting 
channels deep enough to convey away the flood-waters of these 
rivers or brooks; but they were allowed to keep their ancient 
levels, and embankments were made near them on each side, by 
cutting deep back drains, for carrying the dead water from the 
lands, and casting up the soil, excavated from them, on to the 
sides next the rivers or brooks. By this process, all the great 
body of water was conveyed in times of flood, within these 
embankments, to the lowest outfall ; and the deep cutting which 
was considered the sine qua tion of an eflicient drainage, and 
the expensive part of it, was entirely confined to such moderate- 
sized drains as were suflicient to convey the dead water from 
the land. Another practical advantage of the deep back drains 
being contiguous to the embankments, was that, when ihey 
received any injury from cracking, after long droughts, or the 
burrowing of moles and water-rats, and thus permitted the flood- 
water to pass in some degree through them, the back drains 
interrupted it, and preserved the land from injury." 

7. Drainage at Scampton. — In addition to the above, I will 
give the account, with which he has also favored me, of the 
draining of his own private estate at Scampton. 

" With respect to the leading features of drainage, on the great 
scale of operations, I sent you some reports of the Society of 
Civil Engineers, in which, near the end of the papers, you have a 
short account (given above) of the principle I previously named 
to you as having been applied in draining my own estate at 
Scampton, of which place you had spoken in your first number, 
with reference to other matters. As there is no plan or section 
of these drains given, and as the subject is of first-rate agricul- 



DRAINAGE. 



n 



tural importance, I will give you these in a rough way, sufficient 
to make the matter intelligible at a glance." 



" Suppose A to be the section of the bed of a brook of living 
w^ater, running through a marsh, which ordinarily keeps within 
its banks, and that this section contains any given number of 
square feet — say 30. Then estimate, from the best authority, 
what section would convey its highest floods, and suppose it, for 
example, to be four times the usual bed, or 120 square feet. 
Then, as the banks should not be calculated to hold more than 
four feet depth of water, they must be placed at -f-, or 40 feet 
apart ; and the back drains, B and C, will be placed so as to 
form the embankment D and B, thrown up from their excava- 
tion at the required distance from each other. It is, however, 
better in practice to give most ample room between these, as it 
is much safer, in times of flood, to permit the water to spread over 
more land, and be shallow against the banks, than to spare the 
land, and have deep water ready to take fearful advantage of any 
flow or derangement in them, consequent upon cracks from long 
periods of dry and hot weather, or the burrowing of water-rats 
and moles, &c." 

" The meandering nature of the rivers and brooks, in low 
marshes, often leads them into courses dieadvantageous for con- 
veying the whole mass of the dead water, collected in the back 
drains, from the lands drained into them ; and although it is best 
to let them pretty strictly accompany the rivers or brooks, yet, 
when there occurs a better outlet at the termination of the 
drainage on one side of the river or brook than on the other, it 
may be necessary to connect these drains, under the brook or 
river, by a circular or other brick tunnel. Cases also occur 
where brooks, with their accompanying embankments and side 
drains, have their natural course into rivers with the same 
accompaniments as in the sketch" on the next page. 

" Here it becomes necessary to lay a tunnel of sufficient size to 



72 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



convey all the water of the back drains, on the side next the 
brook, under it, as shown in the former sketch, and here by 
dotted lines." 




B, 



a 









2r 








IG 






E 




I 








I 





I . . . . Back Drain. 
B Brook. 



EXPLANATION. 

T Tunnel. 

E . . . . Embankment. 



R River. 

N.... Natural Soil. 



" These tunnels are rather costly ; but being, in most cases, 
few in number, form no great objection to what, in all other 
respects, is the most cheap, and often the only effectual plan of 
drainage in extensive marshes. When the back drains, in ordi- 
nary seasons, have the surface of their water about four feet 
lower than the natural soil, it gives sufficient fall for effectually 
draining the adjacent land by the usual ditches, under-drains, &c. 
Where, on a minor scale, bogs are fed, at the foot of rising grounds, 
from springs below the surface, it has been found impracticable 
to drain them, but by intercepting, by a very deep catch-water 
drain, the springs from entering the bog. No drains, however 
deep or large, below the bog, will dry the land, for it has to pass 
through the land, and cause it to be a bog before it is led off." 

" P. S. It has occurred to me that you ought to be aware 
how extensively steam power has been employed, in Lincoln- 
shire and other flat counties, in draining land where the natural 
fall is insufficient. My own case at Scampton reminded me of 
this; for although, when I first drained that estate in the way I 
have described, there was a sufficient outfall, yet, when my 
neighbors began to find out the benefits of draining their land, 
they embanked against me ; and thus, in time of flood, my old 



DRAINAGE. 



73 



outlet was inefficient, and I have been obliged to eke out my 
former drainage by expending six or seven hundred pounds in a 
twelve-horse power steam-engine, which has proved quite suf- 
ficient to keep the estate dry in the highest floods. I believe 
there are about 400 acres of land subject to flood, without the 
means of keeping it out. The steam-power is applied to a sim- 
ple water-wheel turning freely in a walled watercoiuse, which 
terminates in a curve, which rises over the top of the embank- 
ment, necessary to keep out the flood-water of the river that 
flows below the estate." 




" The power is so adjusted as to give the water in the drain 
just sufficient velocity to rise over the embankment ; and the 
wheel does not touch the walled trough in which it works, either 
on the sides or bottom, so that there is no friction but on its axis. 
I am informed, where these engines have been employed exten- 
sively for otherwise unreclaimed morasses, the expense is trifling, 
compared with the profits of the land thus brought into culti- 
vation." 



8. Drainage in Nottinghamshire. — A tract of land of about 
6000 acres, in Nottinghamshire, on the northern boundary of this 
county, called The Cars, has been drained in a similar way. 
The general impression is, that the sea once flov/ed over this 
territory. Half a century ago, this morass was first attempted to 
be brought into cultivation. At that time it was absolutely a 
bog, and no horse could be used in ploughing it. The first 
attempts at draining it were not successful. " In 1828, a steam- 
engine was erected, of forty-horse power, at a cost of £6000, for 
lifting the water by a wheel. The engine is placed upon the 
main drain, about three quarters of a mile from the River Trent, 
into which the drainage of these Cars empties itself; but, unfor- 

VOL. II. 7 



74 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

tunately, when high tides flowed up that river, there was frequent 
interruption to the drainasje, from the water in the river beino- 
higher than that in the drain ; and it would have flowed in upon 
the Cars, had not flood-gates prevented it. By placing the engine 
at some distance from the Trent, a reservoir was then formed in 
the main drain, within that space flanked by high banks; and so, 
by lifting the water into this reservoir, to a higher level than the 
water of the Trent, it is enabled to fall into that river at all 
times." * 

9. Drainage at Wiseton. — I will insert here a brief notice 
of a drainage effected by the late estimable Lord Spencer, on his 
estate at Wiseton, in Nottinghamshire, by means of an eight- 
horse power steam-engine. 

" Five hundred acres of swampy meadow land, lying on both 
sides of the River Idle, and nearly as low as the bed of it, bear- 
ing only coarse aquatic grasses, of little value, not worth more 
than 15 s. an acre, to rent, are now worth full 25 s. The cost of 
the engine was £520; the necessary buildings, and iron pipe 
(twelve inches in diameter) lying under the bed of the river, 
£400. For this outlay of capital, and the annual expenses of 
coals, and labor to work the engine, not exceeding £60, there is 
an increased annual value of £250, on this part of the estate. 
Besides this, the engine, whilst throwing up the water to con- 
vey it into the river, grinds the corn ; cuts turnips, hay, and 
straw; pumps water for the cattle, in the yards and houses, — and 
would, if required, thresh all the corn. Had there been a thou- 

* "The wheel for lifting' the water revolves between two stone walls, in a 
space of about 27 inches wide, through which the whole of the water is driven. 
The wheel itself is fonned of cast metal sides, with wooden paddles between, 
placed ingeniously at a certain angle, wliich enables the wheel to lift tlie water 
above its own centre: thus a wheel of '33 feet diameter creates an artificial 
drainage equal to more than its radius of IGh feet. Flood-gates are again placed 
immediately before the wheel, to prevent the water coming back on the wJicol 
ceasing to revolve. Absolute command of the water is now eflected ; and a ])ro- 
vision has been made, of incalculable value to the occupier of tliese Cars, by intro- 
ducing, during the summer months, Avater, from the adjoining River Idle, as a 
supply for the stock." 

" The total cost of two cnginrs, for the purpose of this drainage, has been little 
less than £12,000, and tlie annual expenditure of working the engines, and cleans- 
ing the drains, is from 3 s. to 4 s. per acre." — Corringhani's Report of Agticiil 
tiire of JVottinghamshire. 



DRAINAGE. 75 

sand or more acres of the land, the engine wonld have drained 
it, with scarcely any additional expense." * 

10. Grandeur and Value of these Improvements, — I have 
had peculiar pleasure in giving my readers an account of these 
magnificent improvements. They present most striking and 
beautiful examples of the application of capital, labor, and skill, 
in the actual creation of wealth, and of wealth itself of a redu- 
plicative character, and full of beneficent and enduring results. 
Thousands and millions, the produce of severe toil, are often 
wasted upon useless bawbles, upon idle pageants, upon objects 
of mere luxury and parade ; and, when the sun goes down, the 
show passes away as a mere dream. I say nothing of the moral 
results of such exhibitions, which are but too often not indifferent 
merely, but pernicious. But here we witness the glorious and 
enduring triumphs of art and science ; the useful application of 
labor ; the means of human subsistence and comfort largely 
extended ; the waste places enriched, the barren made fruitful ; 
the solitude peopled; a wide territory peacefully rescued from 
the sea, and converted into the abodes of industry and plenty; 
and desolate sands and simken bogs transformed into cultivated 
fields, waving with golden harvests. 

11. Relation of these Improvements to the United States. 
— It may be thought that such improvements as these can hardly 
be looked for in the United States for centuries to come, and 
while so many millions of public and unappropriated lands, of the 
richest description, remain to be had at the cheapest rates. I am 
not of this opinion. The value of lands is materially affected by 
their situation. Excepting in extraordinary fluctuations, or 
seasons of inflated speculation, prices have always a tendency to 
equalize themselves, and to become conformed to actual values. 
If land in the immediate neighborhood of a city is worth three 
hundred dollars per acre, while land in one of the Western States 
may be purchased at the government price of one dollar and a 
quarter per acre, it is because the advantages growing out of the 
position of the one or the other difter in a corresponding degree. 
In the neighborhood of some of our large and growing cities, — of 

* Hilliard's Practical Farminsr. 



76 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

New York, and it may be said, too, of Boston, for example, — there 
are extensive tracts of land, (in some cases constantly saturated 
with water, and rendered comparatively worthless ; in others, 
visited regularly by the tide, and producing an inferior herbage, 
that might be exchanged for what would be far more valua- 
ble,) which might be embanked and drained, and reduced to 
cultivation, for an expense which, under such circumstances, 
their enhanced and constantly-increasing value would much 
more than repay. Such examples as I have described, if they 
have no direct application to the United States, cannot be with- 
out a most salutary iniiuence in stimulating inquiry and effort ; 
in inducing reflecting and inquisitive minds, and men of bold 
enterprise, to look about them, and discover, if possible, what 
means are within their reach of remedying evils under which 
they labor, of honestly improving their own condition, and Avith 
that, of course, the welfare of the community. 

English husbandry, on account of a diversity of climate and 
soil, and because, likewise, of many circumstances in our social 
condition, may not be well adapted to the United States; and to 
follow out its rules, without a just discrimination, would be 
quite sure to end in disappointment and loss : but, in the perfec- 
tion to which the art is carried, in the application of the most 
enlightened and scientific inquiry to its improvement, in the 
strong and indefatigable interest taken by persons of the highest 
influence in its advancement, and in the actual gains and various 
improvements which it has already accomplished, it reads a most 
important lesson, to the farmers of the United States, to remit no 
exertion, and to apply all their energies to the advancement of 
an art involving the most wholesome and an unexceptionable 
application of labor, and constituting the great source of subsist- 
ence and comfort, and the basis of national wealth. 



XCIX. — THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 

1. Climate, AND Condition of the Soil. — The climate of 
England, from its high latitude and insular character, is not 
damp merely, but wet. On the western coast, and far to the 



THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 77 

north, they are much more subject to rain than ou the eastern 
coast. The frequency of rain, and the suddenness with which 
the showers collect and compliment the unsuspecting traveller or 
pedestrian with a bath, and the many days — and I may almost 
add weeks — during which the sun never makes his appearance, 
or, if seen at all, it is with a veil over his face, as though he 
were distrustful of his welcome or ashamed of his long absence, 
forcibly remind the visitor, if he has come from the other side of 
the Atlantic, any where south of the British provinces, that he is 
from home. There is a compensation for this in an eqnable 
temperature, which is exceedingly grateful ; in the indifference 
with which the habits of the people, most of whom seem as 
regardless of a good ducking as so many water-fowl, soon induce 
you to look upon it ; in the brilliant and deep verdure of the 
country, which in many cases remains unchanged, and converts 
February into June ; and in the fine, clear, ruddy, and transparent 
complexions which characterize the English ; — I mean, of course, 
those who are not overworked, and who are well fed ; the class, 
as a member of Parliament significantly denominated them, of 
two meals a day. 

The effect of such a climate upon their land is what we 
should expect ; and a large portion of it is fully saturated with 
water, rendering it difficult of cultivation, and endangering or 
injuring the crops. To cultivate wet lands is quite out of the 
question ; and, therefore, efforts to drain the lands have been 
made, with more or less skill and success, probably as long as 
the land has been cultivated. 

2. Modes of Draining. Open Ditches. Covered Drains. 
— The rudest mode of draining, and that, without doubt, first 
adopted, was that of open ditches. The unsightliness of such 
ditches, where they are numerous, the inconvenience of crossing 
them, the actual loss of land incurred in their formation, the 
constant wear and falling in of the banks, the labor required in 
keeping them open and in repair, with many other obvious objec- 
tions, are quite sufficient to prove them ineligible. Covered 
drains were early substituted for them, and various forms of 
these have been adopted, all of which I shall not undertake to 
describe. 

It IS desirable, in drains, that they should, as speedily as pos- 
7* 



/b EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

sible after rains, or from whatever source the wetness may come, 
reheve the land from it. Several things are therefore to be con- 
sidered — such as the capacity, the depth, and the direction of the 
drains, the distance at which they should be placed, their outlets, 
and the mode of their formation. The expense of draining must, 
in all cases, be considerable. The materials employed in their 
formation, and the permanency of the work, are essential points 
to be considered. The great improvements made in draining 
land, in England, have been the work of the past few years ; in 
no branch of husbandry has more been gained ; and the results 
have been in the highest degree valuable and important. I 
believe I am safe in saying that, in what it has done, and what 
it promises to do, for the advancement of agriculture, no other 
process of improvement can be compared with it. 

3. Elkington's System of Drainage. — It is but few years 
since Elkington — a name well known in English husbandry — 
effected a great improvement, by what might be termed tapping 
the springs. It was generally supposed, at least much more gen- 
erally than at the present time, that the wetness of land pro- 
ceeded from springs, gushing up spontaneously, and supplied 
from internal sources, much rather than from water falling upon 
the surface. It is well known, likewise, that a large portion of 
the earth's surface is in layers, or distinct strata, somewhat like 
the leaves of a book lying upon its side, and, in some cases, not 
flat, but with its side raised up, and, as the geologists term it, 
dipping one way or the other, at different angles of inclination. 
In effecting the drainage of a low piece of land, Elkington's first 
plan — and this was the plainest dictate of common sense — was 
to cut off the water by a drain form.ed at the foot of the elevated 
ground, and romid the whole margin of the meadow. By this 
drain the water from the high lands, whether proceeding from 
permanent springs or from the infiltration of occasional rains, 
was intercepted, and, if possible, conveyed away. I have, seen 
this done repeatedly and successfully, and the meadow, when 
thus insulated, made quite dry. 

But there were other cases, in which it happened that the 
water falling upon the land, though it might pass through one or 
two of the upper strata, would meet, in its passage dov/n, with an 
indurated and impermeable stratum or layer, by wliich it would 



TJIE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 79 

be held fast, and presently the whole surface become saturated 
with wetness. In such cases, by piercing forcibly through this 
stratum, or by digging wells in different parts of the field, which 
would go through it, a more open stratum would be reached, and, 
in this way, the whole land be completely drained. This plan 
would sometimes succeed, where the geological structure of the 
land favored it, and obtained for him great celebrity and most 
extensive patronage ; but, for obvious reasons, it must sometimes 
fail, and large expenditures were occasionally followed by severe 
disappointments. The discovery of this mode of drainage, which 
excited great attention at first, seems, like many other important 
inventions and discoveries, to have been the result of mere acci- 
dent; the circumstance of a laborer having forced a crowbar, 
through a solid stratum of earth, into an open, porous, and grav- 
elly subsoil, by which means a large quantity of water was made 
to disappear, having induced to other experiments, which proved 
successful. There can be no doubt that Elkington's practice 
might still be adopted with success in many cases ; but it is not 
now regarded, as at first, like the patent medicines which we see 
every day advertised as certain to cure all diseases. 

4. Draining with Fagots and Straw. — Various methods of 
draining land had been practised for a great length of time before 
this, and many of them are still continued; and, though they 
may not come in competition with the most improved modern 
methods, yet they frequently may furnish a useful substitute, 
and in some circumstances, and in certain localities, may be most 
eligible. In some cases, after the drain had been dug, it was 
filled in with fagots, over which the soil was returned and 
pressed down. In some cases, si rope of straw was placed in the 
bottom of the drain, and the drain filled in over it, so that, when 
it decayed, it left a passage for the water. These were, of course, 
imperfect modes of draining, and the drains could not be con- 
sidered as very permanent. The filling up was merely intended 
to remain until the earth had become consolidated, and an arch 
was formed. 

o. Pli g-Draining. — In some places a mode of draining, 
which is caXled plug-drahmig, is still in use in stiff clay soils ; is 
executed at a comparatively small expense ; and, though not so 



80 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



permanent as some other modes of draining which I shall pres- 
ently describe, is yet considered sufficiently enduring fully to 
remunerate the expense. In this case, after the drain has been 
fully opened, some wooden blocks, chained closely to each 
other, of the shape and size of which it is desired that the drain 
should be, are placed at the bottom of the drain. The clay 




is then filled in carefully over them, and hard rammed, and 
then the turf and other dirt returned upon the top of that. 
The plugs are then drawn forward by means of a stake in frout 
of them to which they are attached, and tlic filling in proceeds 
until the whole is completed. This drain, if well made, Avill 
last many years. I see no advantage in this matter of having 
the plug in different blocks, unless in a case of the drain vary- 
ing from a straight line ; and it would seem as though a single 
solid plug or stick of the proper size and form, which is some- 
times used, would serve the purpose in view still better. It is 
always safe to infer, however, in respect to any practice which 
has long prevailed, when other modes may have suggested 
themselves as preferable, that it has some good reasons to 
recommend it. The size of the plugs may vary according to 
the size which it is desired the drain should be ; but I will giv( 
the size which is sometimes recommended. The blocks, then 
may be eight inches in height, six inches in length, four inche- 
wide at the top and tv/o inches wide at the bottom, and fastened 
together by strong links of iron. To the forward block an 
iron chain is attached, by which the whole is drawn forward 
by means of the stake or lever in front. I found one of the 
best farmers in England engaged ia making drains, upon a 
considerable field, of this description, deeming them economical 
and effectual ; and it is said that " one farmer has, within four 




THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 81 

years, made 300 miles of this kind of drain," 
and is satisfied with its operation. A section 
of the drain is represented in the engraving. 

6. Draining with Turf Covering. — An- 
other mode of draining, somewhat similar, is, 
after having made the drain tunnel-shaped, 
as above described, leaving two shoulders at 
the height from the bottom it is desirable the 
drain should be made, then to take the sod 
which was taken from the top, and, inverting it, place it upon 
these shoulders in the drain, and then fill up with the dirt 
which has been taken out. Both these methods of draining, 
hoAvever, though comparatively cheap, can scarcely be consid- 
ered as permanent. They are liable to be much worn by any 
considerable amount of water flowing in them, and may easily 
be pressed down by the passage of a loaded wagon over them. 

A farmer in Cambridgeshire, on a soil of tenacious loam, 
shallow, and upon a subsoil of cold clay, makes his drains five 
yards and a half apart, and, having first opened them with a 
double mould-board plough, making a deep furrow, a spade 
follows, and, after taking out to the depth of the spade, the drain 
is dug with a suitable instrument twelve inches farther ; the 
width of this aperture is about three inches at the top, and grad- 
ually reduced to one inch at the bottom. The drain is then 
perfectly cleared by a hoe or a scoop. Peat-turf, procured from 
the fens, and cut into lengths of from twelve to sixteen inches, 
and about three inches in thickness, is then pressed into the 
lower part of the drain its whole thickness, leaving a passage for 
the water, underneath, of about nine inches in depth. The peat 
expands by moisture, and becomes very firm. It is said these 
turf drains have been found in a sound state after having been 
laid for sixteen years ; but it is recommended to renew them 
every eight years. This is certainly a very simple and eco- 
nomical mode of draining. The durability of the drainage 
depends upon the soundness of the clay ; the depth in the earth 
at which the turf is buried ; and the quality of the turf, its 
strength, and firmness.* 

* Journal of Royal A^icultural Society, vol. ii. part 11, p. 262. 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



7. Draining by the Mole Plough. — Another mode of cut- 
ting a drain is by what is called a mole plough. This plough 
consists of a straight and strong beam, to which two handles are 
attached, and a single piece of iron or straight colter, passing 
through the centre of the beam, and capable of being graduated, 
like a common colter, by means of wedges, to such a depth as 
it is desired to go. To the foot of this iron is attached a piece 
of iron, round like a gun-barrel, or round at top and flat at bot- 
tom, of the diameter of which it is intended to make the water- 
course, and pointed at the end. 




I I. i|^ Jl li 

iiiniiiii i ii iiimiiiMm n I n III! 



After being once placed at the proper depth, this is forced 
through the land by a strong team ; but a better way is to 
force it on by a moveable windlass, which is made to revolve by 
a horse attached to the lever. The chain being thus wound up, 
the plough is forced through the ground a short distance, and 
then the windlass is moved forward, and another purchase is 
taken. I met with this machine only on one farm ; but I could 
easily infer that the difficulties attending its use were not small. 
It could only answer upon clayey land. Upon stony ground it 
would meet with insuperable obstructions ; upon gravelly or 
sandy soils, the drain would often be filled up as soon as the 
instrument had passed. Upon clayey and adhesive soils its 
effect would be more permanent ; and the space made by the 
narrow colter, or iron bar, to which the mole itself is attached, 
being narrow, would soon close. I cannot say much in commen- 
dation of this mode of draining ; but it seems to be one of those 
make-shifts to which people often resort with a view to saving 
expense, and which yet fails to accomplish its object ; while a 
more thorough and effectual mode, adopted at first, would have 
proved in the end as little expensive. 



THE DRAINAGE OP FARMS, 



83 



Scoop. jYarrow Spade. 



8. Suffolk Draining. — I will now allow an intelligent 
farmer in Sufiolk to speak for himself, and describe the modes 
of draining adopted in that improved county. 

In the first place, the line is marked out by a plough going 
and returning, and forming a furrow eighteen inches wide and 
five deep. This is followed by another large plough, which 
turns out another furrow ten inches wide by five deep ; and thus 
the plough has formed a drain ten inches wide by ten inches 
deep. The workman, in the next place, with a common spade, 
digs a trench nine inches deep ; and the next step is with a 
narrow spade to go eleven inches deeper, and with a scoop take 
out the loose dirt. 

The narrow spade is 1^ inches wide at 
bottom, and 2 J inches wide at top. It is 
in depth (the blade) 13 inches, but, working 
in a slanting direction, it only digs out about 
11 inches. 

'' After the digging, a small quantity of 
stubble is laid along the narrow drain, and 
is pressed down about three inches by the 
spade into the narrow drain. The stubble 
is not pressed to the bottom, but a free pas- 
sage for the water is left under it. Earth, 
heavy or light indifferently, is then shovelled 
in over the haulm," and the plough is used 
to assist in covering the drain. 

" Sometimes heath is used instead of stubble ; sometimes hop- 
binds twisted ; sometimes a *scud of straw ' is made to fit the 
upper part of the narrow drain. Occasionally a wagon-rope is 
laid along the bottom of the drain, before the filling up is done : 
and the rope is afterwards drawn along, thus securing the drain 
from the crumbs of earth at the bottom ; but this precaution is 
unnecessary. At other times all filling up is dispensed with, 
and a board (or piece of plank) of the same dimensions as the 
narrow drain is fitted into it ; the earth is then rammed down 
on to the edge of the board, and the board is drawn along the 
drain, leaving an arched water-way behind it." An example is 
given of some drains, formed six years previous to the account, 
continuing to do well. 

" Sometimes fagot-wood is laid along the bottom of the drain. 




84 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

with haulm over it, the water finding its way through the 
wood ; " but this mode is deemed expensive, " But, better 
than all, peat cut for the purpose in the fens, in length fifteen 
inches, and three inches square, is pressed gently into the top of 
the narrow drain, and the earth thrown in upon it. The peat 
swells speedily, and becomes firmly fixed, and is very durable ; 
and has this advantage over the methods already specified, and 
also over tile-draining, that a fold-stake driven into it commits 
no damage. In peat-draining, when we come to stony or grav- 
elly spots, two pieces of peat instead of one, or one and a half, 
are placed side by side, or, in bad cases, the sides of the drain are 
built with turf, as well as the top. Stubble, heath, hop-binds, 
straw, are quickly decomposed and washed away ; peat remains. 
Sir Humphry Davy says, " Inert peaty matter remains for years 
exposed to water and air, Avithout undergoing change." * 

9, Draining in Berkshire, — Mr. Pusey, whose operations 1 
had the pleasure of witnessing, is now draining extensively after 
the method which I have described — the plug method. The 
field in which this process was going on was a stift\ adhesive 
clay. I do not understand him to prefer it to tile-draining, 
excepting on the ground of cost. The objection — want of per- 
manence — is met by the small comparative expense. "Where 
the whole of a large farm requires to be drained, and the means 
both of landlord and tenant are limited, there can scarcely be a 
doubt which is best for both of them, — to drain 100 acres for 
forty years, or 300 acres for twenty years," All this must be 
matter of personal calculation, which is likely to be affected by 
a great variety of circumstances. The farmer must calculate 
the length of his lease, and the landlord the length of his life, 
I cannot most certainly commend the selfishness of the man Avho 
said " he should do nothing for posterity because posterity had 
done nothing for him ; " but improvements are sometimes made 
so unnecessarily substantial and expensive, that the mere interest 
of the sum expended would build them in a way to be effective, 
and rebuild them as often as might be necessary to do so. Mr. 
Pusey refers to one fact well worthy of remark : His drainer, an 
experienced man, traced out the drain with a plough, and the 



* Journal of Royal Agi-icultural Societj% vol. iv. part 1, p. 99. 



THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS, 



8; 



saving of expense, by adopting this simple expedient, he calculates 
at 2d. per rod, which would be equal to £2 per acre. The 
plough opened the soil to the depth of 8 inches. These drains 
are made at 11 feet apart and 30 inches in depth. This kind of 
draining can apply only to heavy clay lands. In gravelly soils, 
stones or tile must be used. 



10. Scotch Draining Plough. — At the interesting and ad- 
mirable museum of the Messrs. Drummond, at Stirling, Scotland, 
I saw a mammoth plough designed at one operation to open a 
drain and sink it almost to its required depth. It was the inven- 
tion of Mr. M'Evvan, of Blair Drummond, and upon low alluvial 
lands, or clay land, which is not too stiff, or upon what is called 
carse land, (which much resembles the alluvial lands on the Con- 
necticut River,) it "effected the opening of drains to a depth of 
from 18 to 22 inches in the most perfect manner, and at the 
small cost of about 2 d. per rood of 36 yards. The size of the 
implement was perfectly Brobdignagian, and I had almost said 
terrific. 

^^Elcan''s Draining Plough. 




'' The leading principles of the construction of Mr. M'Ewan's 
draining plough are, — having it of such large dimensions as to 
turn out at once the full depth of the drain, which is the more 
easily accomplished by having the furrow of a wedge shape, and 
ample in its width, so that, when separated from the soil, it shall 
lift freely out ; having the mould-board or inclined plane of 
the plough of great length, and consequently of easy slope, so 
that the great and weighty furrow shall be gradually raised, 
while, by the same form, the plough is rendered more steady and 
easy to hold. The furrow is taken clear out, and laid along the 
drain at one foot distant from the margin. From eight to twelve 
horses are necessary to work this plough in carse land, according 

VOL. II. 8 



86 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

to the nature of the soil ; and it is probable that sixteen may be 
necessary in some obstinate clays. The pace of the horses must 
be slow, say two miles an hour ; and the plough is easily di- 
rected by one man. After the plough has done its work, men 
follow with small spades, to take out a space for tiles or for 
broken stones, and to correct any deviation from the uniform fall 
of the bottom, caused by any unevenness in the ground. The 
tiles or stones are then put in, and the furrow turned in over 
them by the same plough." 

" If the horses were to move continually, at a rate of two 
miles per hour, they would turn out 782 roods, of 36 yards, in 
eight hours ; but in so heavy an operation, much time is lost in 
turnings and otherwise, so that one third may be deducted to 
cover loss of time, which will leave 521 roods of work done." 

" The horses go on each side of the line of drain, the near 
horse of the off-side division going in the furrow, all being 
yoked to a strong main bar, or master-tree, ten feet long, and 
arranged in fours and sixes abreast, as may be necessary ; four 
abreast when eight horses are used, and six when twelve are 
used. The leading horses draw from a second main bar attached 
to the muzzle by a chain passing along betwixt the middle 
horses behind. When the plough reaches the end of a line of 
drain, and is about to be turned, the draught chain of the leading 
horses is detached ; and a man taking hold of the chain, the bar, 
resting on the ground, follows round till in a position to be 
yoked for the next line of drain, the plough following drawn by 
the rear horses. When working, each pair of horses is led by a 
man ; one man to each range of horses, going in the middle, and 
leading a horse in each hand, and a man going on each flank, 
leading the horses next him — the steadiest man being put in the 
middle, to keep a direct line for the drain. The man who lifts 
the chain assists the plougliman in raising the plough from the 
drain just completed ; and in going round and entering for the 
next drain." 

With striking simplicity the writer of this account adds, — 
" The drain plough, like all things else of the same magnitude, 
and when in the hands of inexperienced persons, requires great 
patience and perseverance, especially when applied in a land of a 
hard and stony nature, and can never succeed in the hands of 
impatient and careless people. But to those who take time and 



THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 87 

pains to have their men and horses fully broken in to the work, 
there will be an ample reward in the cheapness and expedition 
with which the drains shall be executed." 

I have given the account of this implement to my reader, if 
indeed he has had breath enough to get through it, rather as 
matter of curiosity, than with even the slightest expectation that 
such a machine could, with any possible advantage, be intro- 
duced into my own country. Yet there are persons who bear 
testimony to their having used it to accomplish a large extent of 
drainage. In my opinion, such persons are of the right nerve to 
be sent upon a forlorn hope ; and the proper team for such a 
machine is not a team of horses, but of elephants. 

1 1. Draining with Broken Stones. — Underground drain- 
ing has been practised, in several counties, for more than a cen- 
tury ; and the construction of drains, by filling the bottoms with 
small stones, is by no means a new process. In such case, the 
drains were dug and filled in, somewhat after the subjoined cuts. 





They were dug to the depth of perhaps 20 inches, and filled 
m with small or broken stones to the depth of about six inches ; 
the stones were covered with an inverted turf, or with straw, and 
the dirt was thrown in upon it, and the land levelled. It must 
be admitted that these drains have proved of an efficient and 
permanent character; and, where stones are easily to be had, this 
form of draining, all circumstances considered, may be highly 
eligible, the shallowness only excepted. In some 
cases, the broken stones fill the whole bottom of 

the drain ; in others, two or three * ^^ , 

flat stones are sometimes set up, thus, / \ or X/ or 
with a view of forming a more ready passage for the water. It 
is obvious that the second form is more likely to keep itself 
clear than the former, from the water being compressed into 




88 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

a narrow space ; and that, in the latter case, as well as where 
the stones are thrown m promiscuously, the entrance of vermin 
is completely foreclosed. Experience has suggested, in such 
drains as these, two or three rules of great importance. The first 
is, that every caution be taken against the dirt sifting in among 
the stones ; the second is, that the drain should never be filled 
with large and small stones, thrown in promiscuously, but that 
only small stones be used ; and they, as far as possible, of a 
uniform size. 

12. Thorough Draining, or Deanstonizing. — I come next to 
speak of operations in draining which, in connection with sub- 
soil-ploughing, may be said to constitute an epoch in agricultural 
improvement ; and the effects of which upon the agriculture of 
England appear destined to be of the most extensive, permanent. 
and valuable character. 

Mr. Smith, of Deanston, near the village of Doune, in Scot- 
land, (of whom I have before spoken,) conceived the plan of laying 
his fields thoroughly dry by a careful system of drainage, and 
next by subsoiling his fields — that is, a mode of deep-ploughing, 
which, as I have described in a former number, consists first in 
ploughing with a common plough, and following in the same 
furrow with a plough of a peculiar construction, called a subsoil- 
plough, being a plough without a mould-board, by which the 
lower stratum is thoroughly broken uj), loosened, and stirred, but 
not brought to the surface. The active soil is still kept upon 
the top; the lower, or subsoil, is rendered permeable to the roots 
of the plants ; the air has access to it, and enriches it, and, by 
being loosened, the water filters through it, passing off by the 
drains. His operations attracted so much attention, and have 
led to such great improvements throughout the country in drain- 
ing, that his name as a great improver is destined to be long 
remembered, and his system is sometimes, after the name of his 
residence, called " Deanstonizing." I have had the pleasure of 
going over the farm on which his operations were carried on, 
and of admiring its improved condition. 

According to the method adopted by Mr. Smith, the first step 
is to ascertain the level of the land, so as to form a main drain 
in the lowest part of the land, into which the side drains may 
fall, and the water be led off. He recommends that the bottom 



THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 89 

of the main drain should be 3i or 4 feet below the surface ; and 
says that a drain ten inches wide, and twelve inches deep, will 
discharge the water from a hundred acres. Many persons, in 
undertaking the draining of flat lands, are discouraged by the 
difficulty of finding an outfall for the water; but he deems that 
one foot fall in a hundred yards, with a drain of the above dimen- 
sions, may be relied on. " It has been proved, in practice, that a 
watercourse 30 feet wide and 6 feet deep, giving a transverse 
sectional area of 180 square feet, will discharge 300 cubic yards 
of water in a minute, and will flow at the rate of one mile per 
hour, with a fall of no more than 6 inches per mile." It is his 
advice that this main drain should be covered as well as the side 
drains ; but others recommend that it should be left open, that 
it may be always easy to watch the running of the side drains 
which empty into it. Three objections, which, among others, 
lie against leaving the main drain open, — such as the falling in 
of the sides, the loss of ground, and the danger of the access of 
vermin to the side drains, (where they are formed with tiles,) 
— are obviated by Mr. Morton, in an ingenious manner, as I saw 
on Lord Ducie's model farm. I have already slightly referred 
to it. The main drain, in this case, runs through the lowest 
part of the land ; but it is made so broad and flat that the grass 
can be mowed down to the very watercourse, or a cart could be 
driven, without overturning, on the very edge or sides of it, 
though this would never be advisable, for fear of injury to the 
drains. The farm road, in this case, is made at about the dis- 
tance of sixteen feet from the centre of this open drain, or brook. 
In this case, then, there is no loss of land, and no bridges are 
required in the crossing. Where the side drains enter the main 
drains, one link in the chain of pipes is omitted, and the remain- 
der of the distance is laid with small broken stone, which allows 
of the passage of the water, but forbids the access of any vermin 
into the drain. 

The main drain having been formed, Mr. Smith advises, next, 
the cutting of a drain at the top of the field, and across the whole 
breadth of it, from which all the side drains are to commence, 
and thence run exactly parallel with each other into the main 
drain. The depth of this transverse drain must not be more 
than that of the drains which may be said to take their rise from 
it, and lead into the main drain. Besides the great main drain, 



90 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

which forms the principal watercourse, the condition of the 
land is often such as to require submains, into which the side 
or parallel drains empty themselves, and by which the water is 
conveyed into the principal drain. This matter is so entirely 
dependent upon the shape and situation of the land to be 
drained, that no universal rule can be laid down. The number 
of snbmains, and their position, must depend wholly upon the 
shape and condition of the land to be drained; but the sub- 
mains should be covered as well as the parallel drains which run 
into them. 

The mains and the submains being completed, the next step 
is to lay out the parallel drains ; and the frequency of these 
drains, or the distance which they should hold from each other, 
depends upon the character of the subsoil. "If," says Mr. 
Smith, "it consists of a stiff and strong till, or a dead sandy 
clay, then the distance from drain to drain should not exceed 
from 10 to 15 feet ; if a lighter and more porous subsoil, a dis- 
tance from 18 to 24 feet will be close enough ; and in very open 
subsoils 40 feet distance may be sufficient. The drains," he 
adds, "should be run parallel to each other, and at regular dis- 
tances ; and should be carried throughout the whole field with- 
out reference to the wet or dry appearance of portions of the 
field, as uniform and complete dryness is the object ; and portions 
of the land, which may be considered dry in their natural state, 
will appear wet when compared with those parts which have 
been properly drained." 

Of the general form of the drains recommended by Mr. Smith, 
I subjoin a sketch, (p. 91,) which will need no illustration. The 
eye will at once discern the dififerent forms which may be eligi- 
ble under different circumstances. 

The depth of the parallel drains should, according to Mr. 
Smith, be at least two feet and a half, — and he deems three feet 
more eligible, — so that the land may be subsoil-ploughed to the 
depth of sixteen inches, and the plough certainly should not pass 
nearer to the drain than two inches ; that is, there should be at 
least eighteen inches of workable soil above the stones with 
which the drain is filled. A less depth, as far as injury to the 
drain is concerned, might answer; but experience has proved, 
most strongly, that a much greater depth than this is to be pre- 
ferred for the perfect drainage of the land. The main drains and 



THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 



91 



TRANSVERSE SECTION OK DRAINS, &C 



3. 

JUimedMabi 



2 



7^^\ ' 



W^ 




submains should be at least six inches lower than tlic parallel 
drains, so as to secure a sufficient fall. In speaking of the incli- 
nation of the drain, so as to secure a sufficient fall for carrying 
off the water, I have given the minimum which should be relied 
on. Mr. Morton is of opinion '' that 1 in 200 is the least that can 
be advised ; 1 in 140, or 1 in 100, would keep the bottom clear 
of sediment." The width of the parallel drains at top should be 
fifteen inches ; at bottom, it may be from four to five inches, ac- 
cording to the width of the tile with which they are to be filled, or 
the quantity of stones which may be at hand to fill in with ; but 



92 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

it will be found that a much less space than this will be ample 
for the discharge of all the water from the land under any cir- 
cumstances ; and where round tiles, of an inch bore, are used, 
(which are getting to be decidedly preferred,) no more width at 
bottom will be required than merely to place the tile. Where 
broken stones are employed, no stone larger than will pass 
through a two and a half inch ring should be employed ; large 
stones ought by no means to be used. 

Practical men advise that the length of a drain should never 
exceed 300 yards ; and, where it crosses springs of water, it should 
not exceed 200 yards. The rule, in making drains, is, to begin 
with the complete formation of the main drain, and then proceed 
with the parallel drains, from the point where they enter the 
main drain to their upper extremity. In filling up, the order is 
to be reversed, and the completion of the drain is to commence 
at the upper end, and proceed to its termination with the lower 
end, or with its entrance into the main drain. It is extremely 
desirable to have, if possible, all the drains opened before any 
portion of them is filled in, that their partial working may be 
watched, and a right inclination secured ; and a very eminent and 
successful improver advises, where draining is attempted in a stiff 
soil of clay, for example, after the tiles are laid, to fill in but par- 
tially at first, leaving the land to be swollen and cracked by the 
winter frosts, — for, such fissures being once opened, the water 
will make for itself through them communications with the drain 
which will become permanent. 

It is now an established point, and one of great importance, 
that, with the exception of the main drain and the submains, 
which must conform to the character of the land, and the point 
where a discharge of the waters is to be sought, all drains 
should be made as straight as possible ; and that, where they are 
made on a side hill, they should proceed straight down the hill 
in the direction of its inclination, and never be made round it, 
or cut it diagonally, for the obvious reason that, although a 
drain made round a hill, or cutting it diagonally, might take the 
water from the land above it, or intercept any spring which 
might be found higher up on the hill, yet it would do nothing 
towards relieving the land below from any wetness which might 
proceed from rain or from springs situated below it. It is 
obvious, likewise, that a drain cut round a hill, or diagonally 



THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 93 

upon its side, will not empty itself so soon as one which is iii a 
direct line down it, and that the water in such a drain is noi 
likely to be wholly emptied by the mouth of the drain ; bat some 
of it will find its way through the side of the drain, as it flows 
on. and, instead of serving to drain, do something towards 
keeping the land below it wet. In making drains on a side liill. 
which empty into a main drain, though it is important always 
to make them straight, it would not be advisable, or even pos- 
sible, to make them parallel ; but, following the formation of the 
ground, they may, as it were, radiate from the top, and reach the 
main at the nearest point. This plan I saw adopted on one of 
the best-managed farms which has ever fallen under my obser- 
vation — that of Mr. Stirling, near Falkirk, in Scotland. 

Mr. Smith refers to two very important advantages in having 
the drains made in a direct line down the steep ; that it is a 
security against the lodgment of any sand or mud in the drain, 
and that, in case of any obstruction presenting itself in the drain, 
the water will, by its downward pressure, force itself through, or, 
bursting out upon the surface, from its accumulation, indicate at 
once the seat of the difficulty. " Cross drains, having little 
declivity, are often filled high up with water, before the insid- 
ious cause of mischief is discovered." Arguments for the con- 
struction of drains straight down the hill, instead of passing 
round or across it, are often referred to, from the geological struc- 
ture of the ground ; but this varies so much in different situations, 
that such arguments can have only a limited application. There 
are cases in which the existence of some spring between the 
drains may require to be led into one of the parallel drains ; but. 
in general, the water, under such circumstances, will find its own 
way ; where this is not the case, however, a short cut or branch 
down the incline may bring the water from the spring directly 
into the side of one of the parallel drains. The tendency of 
water to force its way along by its own gravity, and its extreme 
mobility, must be obvious to every one. That which is nearest 
the drain being first drawn off', the neighboring portion imme- 
diately takes the emptied place, and is forced onwards, and so on, 
gathering accessions continually, beyond any limits which we 
can affix to it. A well, sunk to a more than ordinary depth, will 
often affect all the other wells in a very extensive neighborhood. 

Such are the general and most important principles laid down 



94 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

by the most experienced men, in regard to the system of thorougli 
(h-aining, with a view to subsoil-ploughing. 

Mr. Smith's directions for forming the drains are so clear and 
explicit, that I am persuaded my readers will be gratified to have 
them in his own words. 

" The lines of drains having been marked olf in the field, the 
drainer begins by cutting with a spade on a line, then removing 
a first spading of about 13 or 14 inches wide all along ; another 
follows with a narrower and tapering spade, made for the pur- 
pose, taking out another spading ; and, when picking becomes 
necessary, a third man follows with a pick, and a fourth with a 
large scoop-shovel, to cast out the earth ; a smaller scoop-shovel 
is used to clean out the bottom, which should be cut as narrow 
as will allow the last drainer a footing, generally about 3 or 4 
inches. From 2 to 2^ feet from the surface are the best depths 
for such drains, the latter always to be preferred. The bottom 
should be cut as straight and uniform as possible, so that the 
water may flow freely along at all places, and it is better to cut 
a little deeper where there is any sudden rise of the surface, than 
to follow it ; and where sudden hollows occur, the cutting may, 
on the same principle, be less deep : attention to this also admits 
of after straightening or levelling of the surface, without any 
injury to the drains. The workmen, in cutting, should throw 
the earth to the right and left from each alternate drain, as that 
allows the plough to go regularly and fully occupied boutings, 
in filling in the earth, whilst each alternate ridge or space is left 
for getting in the stones, free from the earth thrown out. The 
stones may either be laid down at intervals by the sides of the 
drains, to be there broken, or, being broken in masses at some 
convenient spot, and at such convenient seasons as best suit for 
the employment of spare labor, can be brought by the carts 
ready to be filled in. No stones should be filled in till the whole 
line of drain has been cut out and inspected; but the sooner 
drains are completed after having been cut, the better, and they 
should always be filled from the higher level downwards. 
Sometimes, when there is much tendency of the sides to fall in, 
it becomes necessary to fill in going along. Cutting in the sum- 
mer, when there is little water in the soil, or in any dry season, 
saves much of this. In soft or sandy bottoms, by cutting the 
drains to half the depth in the first instance, and allowing them 



THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 95 

to remain so till the water has been voided from the upper 
stratum of the soil, the lower part may then be cut out with 
more safety from falling in. The stones should not be filled 
nearer to the surface than IS inches, leaving IG inches free for 
deep ploughing. 

" The upper surface of the stones having been made straight 
and uniform, the whole should be neatly and closely covered 
with a thin thatch or turf, cut from the adjoining surface or 
brought from some suitable place. Strict attention to the correct 
execution of this operatioti is of the greatest importance, as manif 
drains are ruined at once from the running in of tJtc loose earth. 
Thick turfs are objectionable, from the difficulty of getting them 
to fit close. Straw, rushes, broom, whins, and other like mate- 
rials, are very objectionable, affording no certain or uniform 
security, and forming a receptacle for vermin ; peat moss, in a 
thin layer, well beat down, may be used to advantage. When 
the deepest ploughing has been executed, there should always 
!-emain a firm crust of earth undistinbcd over the stones of the 
drain ; and no surface water should ever have access to the free 
way of a drain by any direct opening, but should find its way 
by percolation or filtration through the subsoil, and should 
always enter by the sides of the drains. It may be of advan- 
tage to tread or beat down closely the first two inches of soil 
put over the turf, in order to form the permanent crust." 

The making of drains is a matter which requires great skill 
and experience. So important and expensive an operation 
should be executed with the greatest care. The most thorough 
and permanent mode of doing it will be found, in the end, the 
most satisfactory and the least expensive. The science and 
skill of an experienced engineer will be often found requisite to 
lay out the work, and to determine the levels, where it is to be 
undertaken to any great extent, either by individuals or com- 
panies ; and this class of men, now so rare among us. may, I 
hope, presently appear. The supply of such professional men, 
whose services would be of the greatest utility in many cases, is 
a jirominent object, to which I should look forward in the estab- 
lishment of seminaries for agricultural education. There has 
been, many times, a great waste of labor and money, and most 
inortifying disappointments, where such operations have been 
impcrlocfly and hastily executed, or undertaken without expe- 



96 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

rience or skill. Instances can be cited, where, indeed, the neces- 
sary taking up and removal of an imperfect drainage has actually 
cost more than the reconstruction of the whole work. The art 
likewise of using to advantage the common draining tools by 
the laborer himself is the result of training and long experience. 
In England, where the division of agricultural labor is carried to an 
extent, of which, in the United States, we hardly know any thing, 
there are professional drainers almost exclusively devoted to this 
branch of patient and severe toil, who have reached a perfection 
in the art and the use of the tools quite deserving of admiration. 
It must be a long time before we can have such a set of laborers, 
unless we import them. 

13. Implements for Draining. — I subjoin, (p. 97,) for the 
benefit of my reader, a plate of the various implements cus- 
tomarily used in draining, which, I hope, will put him upon the 
inquiry whether he can devise any better. 



explanation of the following plate. 

Fig. 1. — Section of the Frequent Drain, with its filling of broken stones and its Sot. 
a First Spade, common shape. 

h Second Spade, which follows the first, and is narrower, 
c Pick, used when the subsoil is stony. 
d Large Scoop-Shovel, for removing the loose earth after picking. 

Fig. 2. — Section of the Wedge-Drain, with its Set, as used m the carse or clay 

soil. 
a First or opening Spade, same as above. 
6 Second do. (Some use tliis and tlie following with a spur attached ; but 

the best drainers prefer pushing with the toe on the shoulder of the 

spade.) 
c Third or narrowest Spade. 
d Narrow Scoop for cleaning out the bottom. 

p,G. 3. — Section of tlie Tile-Drain, witli its Set. 
a First Spade. 
h Second do. 
c A flat Scoop, with turned-up edge, for cleaning out the bottom. 

p,G. 4._ A Flauchtcr Spado, used for cutting turf to cover the small stones in 
the frequent drain. 



THE DRAINAGE OF FARMS. 



97 



TRANSVERSE SECTION OF DRAINS, &.C., WITH SKETCHES OF IMPLEMENTS 
USED IN THEIR FORBIATION. 



'^1 r 




^ 2 



ITcdge Dmoi [r-i 





J,-^. 



FlmchbT 



Spade 






VOL. II. 



98 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



C — NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS. — A DIGRESSION. 

All hope of finding a Yankee skilled in the use of the spadoj 
or able, or willing, whether able or not, to cut a drain with the 
same neatness and exactness as an Irishman, or a Scotchman, or 
an Englishman would do, must, I think, be given up, at least for 
the present. They are not accustomed to apply themselves so 
steadily to a minute object, I have never yet found one, who 
could, or, if he could, was willing to make a straight drain. 
There arc about them a hurry and carelessness of operation, 
what is vulgarly called an independence of temper, a conceit of 
their own superior sagacity and knowledge, and an impatience of 
being taught, — a necessary result, I believe, of our free institu- 
tions, and the general diffusion of a moderate education, which 
refuses to be commanded or directed. This is a temper of mind, 
which, I acknowledge, has its advantages, and is a great spur to 
improvement, but which is often excessively discouraging and 
inconvenient to other parties, who may choose to have their own 
work done in their own way, and who, when they pay liberal 
wages for services required, might with some reason expect to 
find a servant instead of a master. But servant does not, I be- 
lieve, belong to a republican vocabulary. I am content. 

In executing, as I have done, some miles of underground drain- 
ing, I should have utterly despaired of accomplishing it, but for the 
aid of some Irishmen and Scotchmen ; and, I believe, I shall do 
no injustice by saying there is this difference between the two : 
For patient labor and the free expenditure of his strength in 
such cases, the Irishman cannot be exceeded ; and his skill in 
the use of the spade, and the pickaxe, and the shovel, is unsur- 
passed. But he needs always direction ; he only imitates, and 
follows a lead. The Scotchman goes himself. He is equally 
severe and laborious as the Irishman ; but he has a judgment of 
his own to guide him, and he always brings that judgment to 
bear upon his work. 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 99 



CI. — TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 

The thorough drainage of laud now occupies the attention of 
the agricuUural community in Great Britain more than any other 
branch of improvement connected with the soil. I know of 
none from which more important and beneficial results have been 
received, or may still be looked for. It will not be pretended that 
all soils equally demand it, or will be equally benefited by it ; 
but, among the many instances which I have seen, scarcely any 
have failed to meet the expectations of those persons who have 
adopted this means of improvement. The drainage of land, as I 
have before remarked, has been a practice of long standing ; but, 
as connected with subsoil ploughing, it must be considered as of 
modern date. 

I have spoken already of various modes of forming drains. 
That of draining with tiles or pipes remains to be treated, and 
in several respects the experience of the last two or three years 
has effected extraordinary improvements, especially in the con- 
struction of the tiles or pipes, and in the reduction of the ex- 
pense of the operation. The expense was at first of a character 
to render the improvement quite formidable ; but from an outlay 
of £5, or in some cases even £10, it is now reduced, under 
favorable circumstances, to £2, or even less, and the great hin- 
derance to its general adoption is removed. 

1. Improvejients in Form of Draining-Pipes. — Tiles were 
formerly made singly, and by hand. The clay was rolled out, 
and then pressed over a block into the shape of a horseshoe. 
In laying them in, it was deemed only necessary to lay them on a 
hard bottom of clay. But the running water constantly wore the 
bottom, and softened the clay ; and the tile would sink into the 
clay, and the drain be rendered useless. The next improvement 
was to make them with feet ; that is, to spread the bottom edge, 
on which they stood, outside, from a half of an inch to an inch in 
width, — thus, C\^ — which served to prevent their sinking into 
the earth or clay upon which they rested. The next improve- 
ment was to construct a flat sole, to be laid in the bottom of the 
drain, which should be a little wider than the tile itself, and upon 



100 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

which it should be carefully placed. This sort of tile is still 
used in many parts of the country ; and it is universally advised, 
as the result of the best experience, wherever this horseshoe 
tile is used, that it should always be placed upon a sole or bot- 
tom. For this purpose, the sole might be formed and baked like 
the tile itself. Where slates are plenty and easy to be had, they 
answer well as a substitute for the clay tile. The next step in 
the improvement of the form of a drain tile was to bend it in 
the form of a pipe, bringing the edges almost together, but leav- 
ing a seam at the under part for the admission of the water, as 
it was then deemed indispensable for this object that it should 
be done. The last improvement is that of making a complete 
pipe, of such a diameter in the bore as is deemed necessary ; and 
these are now made by machines, of which there are several of 
very ingenious construction, and some of which produce eight 
or eleven pipes at a single operation, of a uniform thickness and 
bore, and all cut to the same length. Different materials have 
been used for the formation of draining tiles ; some have been a 
mixture of various substances, principally lime and sand, and 
called concrete ; but perhaps no better material can be found 
than the best of brick clay ; and this, when properly prepared 
and well baked, will be found to endure for a length of time as 
yet unascertained. The proper preparation of the clay requires 
that the stones should be picked out of it, and that it should be 
finely ground and pulverized. Some persons insist that it should 
be washed ; but the best machines are so made as to avoid this 
necessity. The speed with which some of these machines are 
operated, is quite remarkable ; it being asserted, on authority which 
may be relied upon, that Hatcher's machine, when worked by a 
man and three boys, will turn out nearly 11,000 pipe tiles, of 
one inch bore, in a day of ten hours, and so in proportion for 
pipes of a larger diameter. A machine invented by Mr. Scragg, 
of Calveley, Cheshire, " is equivalent," says Mr. Parkes, the 
engineer of the Royal Agricultural Society, " to the easy man- 
ufacture of more than 20,000 pipes of an inch bore per day of 
ten hours, and so on in proportion for other sizes. It is also 
worked," he adds, ''at a less cost of labor, and with greater 
ease to the workmen, than any other machine with which I am 
acquainted." It must be admitted that this is a great advance 
in mechanical invention and improvement. 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 101 

2. Important Points in Draining. — Some most important 
points in draining seem to have been bat recently established. 
The first is, that water enters the drain from the bottom, rather 
than from the top ; that is, its tendency is always to seek the 
lowest level. The second point, which seems well determined, 
is, that pipes of an inch bore are sufficient, when laid down at 
proper distances, for the rapid and effectual removal of any 
quantity of water from the land, which is the effect of rain upon 
the land. The third point is, that deep draining, though the 
drains be less frequent, is much more effectual than shallow 
draining, and that where drains of two feet deep have failed to 
run, or even drains of three feet have been ineffectual, drains of 
four feet on the same land have shown the presence of large 
quantities of water in the land, which otherwise would not have 
been removed. I have seen this completely demonstrated ; and 
the testimonies on this subject are so multiplied within my own 
knowledge, that it may almost be affirmed that a single drain of 
four feet in depth will be more effectual in the drainage of a 
soil, than two drains of the same size laid at any depth less than 
three feet. The Duke of Portland, when I had the pleasure of 
examining his magnificent improvements at Welbeck Abbey, 
pointed out to me some land, which had been deemed suf- 
ficiently drained, and indeed much more deeply than was usual, 
but which, notwithstanding, continued to occasion rot to the 
sheep which were fed upon it ; and the evil was not effectually 
removed until the drains were sunk to the depth of eight feet. 

" Several respectable and intelligent farmers in Kent, who 
have laid drains very deeply in clays and stiff soils, assert that 
the flow from the deepest drains invariably commences and 
ceases sooner than from shallower drains after rain." This is a 
curious fact. That it should flow more copiously in such deep 
drains is to be expected, from the fact of a deep drain's affecting 
a larger extent of land than a shallow drain ; but, as the gentle- 
man who states this fact suggests, it is not so easy to account 
for the water falling upon the surface appearing in a drain four 
feet deep sooner than in one two feet deep. The fact, how- 
ever, seems well established. 

3. Results and Experience in Pipe Draining. — Depth of 
Drains. — I shall now proceed to state some facts, both in 

9* 



102 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

regard to the depth of draining, and tlie sufficiency of pipes of a 
small bore for the perfect removal, in a short lime, of all the 
water that falls upon the surface. I must premise, however, 
that these are but a few of those which have come within my 
own personal knowledge ; but, these being stated with accuracy 
and exactness, I shall avail myself of them. 

Mr. Hammond, of Penshurst, in Kent, states that he has 
drained ten acres with the round tiles, and that he is " quite 
satisfied that they act better than any other yet made, as they 
are not liable to be disturbed by moles or other vermin, %vhich 
the other sorts admit, and can be laid with greater nicety in the 
drains than in any other shape. The effect of draining I have 
experienced for twenty years, and am quite satisfied that no 
expenditure on the land will make so good a return ; as the 
effect of relieving the soil of the stagnant water to the depth of 
three feet instantly admits the atmosphere, and what before had 
been inert becomes active soil, and the root will penetrate it, 
and rain afterwards will pass through the soil into the drains 
with beneficial effects, where before it was injurious." * 

Mr. Parkes, in his capital papers upon draining, says, " Several 
farmers have under-drained lands again, which were previously 
shallow-drained ; and they agree in stating the beneficial result, 
in every case, to have equalled their expectation, and to have 
quickly repaid the cost." Mr. Spencer, of Wrotham, in Kent, 
has successively drained two feet, three feet, and four feet deep, 
and has invariably found an increasing fertility to result, in the 
same field, from the removal of the water to a progressively 
greater depth below the surface. 

Mr. Arbuthnot gives the subjoined account of his success in 
laying land dry by drains sunk to the depth of four feet. Two 
pieces of grass land, containing about seven acres together, had 
been attempted to be drained, but without success, by the ordi- 
nary process of shallow drains. He then undertook to siidv deep 
drains to the depth of four feet, at distances varying from 25 to 
45 feet apart, and to lay pipes at the bottom of each drain. At 
the time the work was in progress, there was scarcely any rain ; 
but upon its completion there were some heavy showers, and 
the cff'ect of the four feet drains was soon established. The 

* Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. part i. p. 47. 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 103 

pipes in the furrows were 1^ inch in the bore ; the pipes in the 
main drain were 3 inches in diameter. The rain rushed rapidly- 
out of the new main drains, but none came out of the old 
shallow drains into the main drain. The lands soon became 
perfectly dry, which was very far from being the case under the 
shallow drains. Mr. Arbuthnot adds, " that he is so convinced 
of the effect of deep drainage, that, although the whole of the 
land which he occupies has been drained, partly with stones 
and partly with tiles, and, as was thought, to a tolerable depth, 
yet he designs to cross the old drains with deeper ones, in order 
to do all in his power to free the land from excess of water. 
Instead of using pipes of IJ inch diameter, he would prefer the 
pipes of the cross drains running into the main drain to have 
been only 1 inch, being convinced that inch pipes would have 
answered every desired purpose."* 

On a subject so curious and important as this, I deem it proper 
to quote from a letter from Mr. Hammond (to whose experience 
I have before referred) to Mr. Parkes. "I found," he says, 
" after the late rains, that a drain eight feet deep ran eight pints 
of water, in the same time that another three feet deep ran five 
pints, although placed at equal distances. The circumstances 
under which this experiment was made, as well as its indica- 
tions, deserve particular notice. The site was the hop-ground 
before referred to, which had been under-drained thirty-five 
years since, to a depth varying from 24 to 30 inches ; and though 
the drains were laid somewhat irregularly and imperfectly, they 
had been maintained in good action. Mr. Hammond, however, 
suspecting injury to be done still to the plants and the soil by 
bottom water, which he knew to stagnate below the old drains. 
again under-drained the piece in 1842, with inch pipes, in part 
to 3 feet deep, and in part to 4 feet in depth, the effect proving 
very beneficial. The old drains were left undisturbed, but 
thenceforth ceased running, the whole of the water passing 
below them to the new drains, as was to be expected. The 
distance between the new drains is 26 feet, their length 150 
yards, the fall identical, the soil clay. The experiment was 
made on two drains adjoining each other, i. e., on the last of the 
series of the three feet, and on the first of the series of four feet 

* Journal of tlie Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi. part i. p. 130. 



104 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

drains. The sum of the flow from these two drains, at the time 
of the trial, was 975 pounds per hour, or at the rate of 19^ tons 
per acre in 24 hours ; the proportionate discharge, therefore, 
was 12 tons by the four feet, and 7^ tons by the three feet 
drain. No springs affected the result. Hence we have two 
phenomena very satisfactorily disclosed — first, that the deepest 
drain received the most water ; second, that it discharged the 
greatest quantity of water in a given time, the superficial area of 
supply being the same to both drains." 












3^^ 




'''m&mB 




/ft', A 







EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



SEVENTH REPORT. 



CI. — TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. {Continued.) 

On this subject Mr. Parkes continues his remarks : — " The 
phenomenon of a deep drain drawing water out of a soil from a 
greater distance than a shallower one, is consistent with the 
laws of hydraulics, and is corroborated by numberless observa- 
tions on the action of wells, &c. ; but the cause of the deeper 
drain receiving more water in a given time, is not so obvious. 
An opposite result, as to time, would rather be expected, from 
the fact of water, falling on the surface, having to permeate a 
greater mass of earth, both perpendicularly and horizontally, in 
order to reach the deep drain. A natural agricultural bed of 
porous earth resembles an artificial filter ; and it is unquestion- 
able that the greater the depth of matter composing such filter, 
the slower is the passage of water through it. In stiff loams 
and clays, however, but more jjarticularly as regards the latter 
earth, the resemblance ceases, as these soils can permit free 
ingress and egress to rain water only after the establishment 
of that thorough net-work of cracks or fissures, which is occa- 
sioned in them 3y the shrinkage of the mass from the joint 
action of drains and superficial evaporation. These fissures 
seem to stand in the stead of porosity in such soils, and serve to 
conduct water to drains after it has trickled through the worked 
bed ; it is possible, too, that, in deeply-drained clays of certain 
texture, the fissures may be wider or more numerous, in conse- 



106 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

quence of the contraction of a greater bulk of earth than when 
such soil is drained to a less depth." * 

The fact to which this very able writer refers has its diffi- 
culties, as I have before remarked ; but it is to be considered 
that, as a larger surface is drained by a deep than by a shal- 
lower drain, the streams through the pores or the fissures of the 
earth, which empty into it, are, of course, larger, and so acquire 
an increased momentum in their progress. If the descent of the 
water in the soil was altogether perpendicular, the drain nearer 
the surface would, of course, be reached first ; but in a drain 
much more water must come diagonally or obliquely, than per- 
pendicularly. The more land to be drained, the farther the 
water must flow ; the farther the water has to flow, the greater 
the volume of stream which is collected ; the larger the stream, 
the more its momentum and velocity will be increased. This 
supposes, however, that the passages are already opened and 
formed. In the case of the artificial filter referred to, the water, 
descending perpendicularly, would of course reach the bottom 
later than it would reach any higher portion ; but, supposing the 
filter to have been so long made that the liquid poured upon it 
had formed various passages, it seems to me not improbable that 
the mass of water poured upon it would reach a central point at 
the bottom where it was to make its exit, or a basin in which it 
was to be collected, as soon as any small quantity would be col- 
lected, at a point somewhat higher up ; and that the larger the 
size of the filter in this case, the more surface it covered, from 
the increased quantity, and the increased rapidity of flow given 
to the streams flowing to this point, the sooner it would become 
full, and even sooner than a point higher up, which would, of 
course, aflect a proportionately less mass of .^urface to be drained. 

4. Size of Pipes. — There has been so much conversation 
and discussion on the size of pipes, and the efficiency or capacity 
of small pipes of only one inch bore, in efl"ecting the drainage of 
land, that I know I shall agreeably tax the attention of my 
reader by quoting further from Mr. Parkes's excellent essay on 
this subject. 

" It was on the 9th of November that I inspected the drainage 

* Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. v. part ], p. 150. 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 107 

of Mr. Hammond's farm, recording the facts, that, after a rain of 
about twelve hours' duration, on the 7th, I found the drains, on 
the 9th, in a nine-acre piece, three feet deep, just dribbling, and 
those in a hop-ground adjoining, four feet deep, exhausted ; Mr. 
Hammond having observed, previously to my arrival, that the 
greatest stream at the outfall of each drain amounted to about 
the half-bore of the inch pipe." 

"The rain-gauge informs us that ..^s of an inch in deioth of 
rain fell upon each square foot of surface in the observed time 
of twelve hours. This quantity is equivalent to 69^^ cubic 
inches, or 2^ pounds, which, divided by twelve hours, gives 
little more than -^(s of a pound per square foot of surface per 
hour for the weight of the rain." 

" The drains were 24 feet asunder, and each pipe a foot in 
length, so that each lineal foot had to receive the water falling 
on 24 square feet of surface, equal to 60 pounds, or 6 gallons ; 
and as the time which this quantity occupied in descending 
through the soil and disappearing was about 48 hours, it results 
that 1^ pounds, or one pint per hour, entered the drain through 
the crevice existing between each pair of pipes. Every one 
knows, without having recourse to strict experiment, how very 
small a hole will let a pint of water pass through it in an hour, 
being only one third of an ounce per minute, or twice the con- 
tents of a lady's thimble." 

" The weight of rain, per acre, which fell during the 12 
hours, amounted to 108,900 pounds, or 48Tiy tons, which on the 
whole piece of nine acres, is equal to 437^"^^ tons ; and each 
drain discharged 19 tons, equal to about /^ of a ton per hour, on 
the mean of 48 hours ; but when the flow was at the greatest, I 
find that each drain must have discharged at the rate of live 
times this quantity per hour, which affords proof of the faculty 
of the pipes to receive and carry off a fall of rain equal to 2^ 
inches in 12 hours, instead of half an inch — a fall which is 
quite imknown in tliis climate. Half an inch of rain in twelve 
hours is a very heavy rain. I learn from Mr. Dickinson that 
his rain-gauge has never indicated so great a fall as 1^^ incli in 
24 hours, and from Dr. Ick, the curator of the Birmingham 
Philosophical Institution, that only on five occasions has the 
rain there exceeded one inch in 24 hours, during the same 
period of eight years. We may, therefore, consider the fact of 



108 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the sufficiency of inch-bore pipes for agricultural drainage to be 
fully demonstrated, both by experience and experiment." 

5. The Philosophy of Draining. — The drainage of land is 
of such vast importance, that, although my remarks on the sub- 
ject have been much extended, I may safely longer claim the 
indulgence of my reader. It may be safely laid down as an 
established principle, that, in order to the successful cultivation 
of the soil, the cultivator must have, as far as it can be acquired, 
the command of the water by which that soil is affected. I 
have already said that wetness may be ascribed to two causes ; 
the first, arising from what are called permanent springs in the 
soil, which, of course, are more or less affected by the rain which 
falls, but whose origin may be sometimes traced to a consid- 
erable distance from the ground, which is covered or saturated 
by them ; and secondly, from rain falling directly upon the field. 
The former can be remedied only by cutting off the spring or 
the channel in which its waters flow. The latter evil can be 
remedied only by a system of drainage, so frequent and so 
formed and laid, as to convey the water away in the sliortest 
possible time. I call it an evil ; but, in the main, the rain which 
falls is, of course, an immense good — a great and powerful 
instrument of vegetation, without which no vegetation could 
prosper, or even survive. It becomes an evil only when it 
becomes stagnant. The effects of stagnant water in land are 
destructive to vegetation ; or rather, under certain conditions, it 
may even produce a greater luxuriance of vegetation, but the 
plants produced in a very wet soil are unpalatable, innutritions, 
and insubstantial. Animals fed upon them always lose condi- 
tion, and the manure of animals so fed is almost worthless. I 
saw this strikingly illustrated in the magnificent park of the 
Duke of Bedford, at Woburn Abbey. Here there were many 
spots where the grass was luxuriant and abundant, on account 
of their excessive dampness, and which were entirely neglected 
both by the sheep and the deer ,• but wherever these places, once 
wet, had been thoroughly drained, they became the favorite 
resorts of the animals, and were fed as closely as possible. I 
have witnessed similar results in many other cases. 

Water is an element in the food of plants, composing, in some 
instances, as in the turnip and potato, a large proportion of their 



TILK AND PIPE DRAINIXG. 109 

substance ; the former, it is stated, containing nearly 90 per cent., 
the latter varying from 70 to 80 per cent. Water, filtering 
through a soil, opens its pores to the admission of air, which is 
most essential to the growth of the plant, or perhaps, more 
properly speaking, to the fertility of the soil. Humboldt 
observed that argillaceous soils and humus deprived the air of 
Its oxygen. He satisfactorily ascertained that earth taken from 
the galleries of mines at Salzburg only became fertile after 
having been exposed to the atmosphere for a considerable length 
of time. These observations established the necessity of the 
presence of oxygen in the interstices of the soil, or, as he then 
said, and as may still be maintained, the utility of a previous 
oxidation of the soil. All our agricultural facts, indeed, confirm 
this view of the necessity of air in the interstices of the soil that 
is destined for the growth of vegetables. When, by ploughing 
v^ery deeply, for example, we bring up a portion of the subsoil 
into the arable layer, in order to increase its thickness, Ave 
always lessen the fertility of the ground for a time : in spite of 
the action of manures, and of any treatment we may adopt, a 
certain time must elapse before the subsoil can produce an advan- 
tageous effect ; it is absolutely necessary that it have been 
exposed to the atmospheric influences ; and it is then only that 
deep ploughing, which gives the arable layer a greater thickness, 
pays completely for the expense it has occasioned.*' 

Water contributes, in the next place, when filtering gradually 
through the soil, to dissolve the manures, and prepare them to 
assist in the growth of the plants — in some cases, for the elements 
of these manures to be taken up by the plants. But water m 
too great abundance destroys these manures, and carries them 
away. Rain water, falling upon the surface, when the tempera- 
ture of the air is higher than that of the soil, contributes to 
increase this temperature of the soil. Water, when stagnant in 
a soil, diminishes its temperature. The extreme wetness of a 
soil renders it difficult to be worked ; impedes the sowing or 
planting ; often destroys the seed and the crop ; occasions it 
to become poached or inaccessible to animals ; and in many 
other ways may be said to make the cultivation of such soils 
hopeless. 

* Boussingault, p. 286. 
10 



110 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The rain water which falls upon land may be detained by 
two circumstances — the first by the impervious nature of the 
upper soil, which may be an adhesive and strong clay, through 
which the rain cannot percolate ; the second, by an impervious 
or indurated subsoil, either of clay or of hard pan, which holds 
fast the water when it reaches it, and consequently the upper 
portions become saturated or flooded. In respect to the former, 
the adhesive clay, though there have been some failures, yet 
there are majiy remarkable instances, where, by a system of 
under-draining and subsoil-j^loughing, the hardest soils have 
been opened and rendered comparatively dry and friable. When 
a ditch or drain has been dug, the tenacity of the neighboring 
soil has been loosened, and the drying of the soil in the hot sun 
of summer has, under such circumstances, caused it to crack in 
various directions, and, these fissures being once opened, channels 
for the trickling of water have been formed ; others have fol- 
lowed from contiguity, and these adhesive soils, by a course of 
cultivation, have been loosened and reduced to a condition of 
unlooked-for dryness and fineness. Where the wetness of the 
soil has been occasioned by a hard and impervious subsoil, this 
evil has found no other effectual remedy than in deep draining, 
and the thorough breaking up of this hard layer by the subsoil- 
plough. The stratum below is often found pervious to the 
water, which makes for itself a ready exit, when it once reaches 
it. Some persons are of opinion that, if it were possible to pre- 
vent it, it would not be desirable to draw off the water beyond a 
depth of from four to five feet, — vegetation ordinarily not extend- 
ing beyond this, — thinking that, in time of drought, the upper 
surface might be benefited by the evaporation of the water at 
this depth, or its ascent by the process of capillary attraction. 
It is useless to speculate in this case, as such a matter must be 
almost wholly beyond our arrangement or control. I ought to 
add that, where this adhesive soil is once loosened, its porosity 
— if I may borroAv a hard word — is often much assisted by 
the common earth worms, who penetrate it in various direc- 
tions, and, directed by natural instinct, aim especially at the 
drains or places where the water is found. Thus it is that we 
are often served by our most humble friends, and in circum- 
stances where we never think of recognizing the obligation. 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 



Ill 



6. Magnificent Agricultural Improvements, and their 
Moral Results. — These may be considered as the general 
principles of draining ; and, as I have before remarked, it must 
be placed almost at the head of British agricultm-al improve- 
ments. Much as it has already done in connection with subsoil- 
ploughing, it may be said only to have begun its work ; and it 
seems destined to double, in many cases to quadruple, the agri- 
cultural products of the kingdom. The scale on which it has 
been carried on, by some distinguished improvers, may well 
excite surprise on the other side of the water. The Duke of 
Portland, it is stated, had some time since completed more than 
7000 miles of drainage on his estates, although much of this was 
done before the system of subsoil-ploughing was introduced. 
The Duke of Bedford informed me that he made about 200 
miles of drainage on his estates in a year, and about 50 
miles in his Park grounds. This was all executed in the most 
excellent manner.* Lord Hatherton at Teddesley Park, whose 

* The Duke of Bedford was kind enough to give me, while enjoying the unaf- 
fected and princely hospitalities of Woburn Abbey, an account of his draining 
operations for three years, which 1 shall here subjoin. It will interest an intel- 
ligent reader, by showing him the extent to which agricultural improvements are 
carried in this country ; and it will illustrate another point, to which I have more 
than once referred, the accuracy with which, on such estates, the farming accounts 
are kept — a matter which cannot be too much insisted on. 



"Aji Account of Draining on the Duke of Bedford's Bedfordshire Estates, in the 
Years 1841, 1842, 1843, and 1844. 



« In winter of 1841 and 1842 : — 
Woburn Park and Grounds. . 

Woburn District 

Bedford District , 

" In winter of 1842 and 1843: — 
Woburn Park and Grounds. . 

Woburn District , 

Bedford District , 

"In winter of 1843 and 1844: — 
Woburn Park and Grounds. , 

Woburn District 

Bedford District 



Acres. 


Tiles. 


90 


254,950 


90 


240,300 


203 


392,760 


71 


194,505 


277 


625,750 


232 


492,845 


100 


180,000 


243 


494,150 


228 


430,300 



Cost. 



£ s. d. 

864 5 7 

648 17 5 

1095 8 5 

612 4 
1587 14 7 
1409 9 

636 5 
1411 18 1 
1391 1 1 



Average 

Cost per 

Acre. 



£ s. d. 

9 12 

7 4 
5 I 

8 12 

5 15 

6 10 

6 12 

5 16 

6 



"JVb/e. — The greater cost per acre of draining in the Park than upon the 



112 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

admirably improved estate I have had the pleasure of repeatedly- 
visiting, had, some years since, completed the drainage of more 
than 467 acres, at an expense of £1508 17s. 4d. ; and had 
increased the rental of his land, by these operations, to the 
amount of £435 2 s. 4d. per year, or at the rate of 29 per cent, 
upon the capital expended. The main drains here were laid 
about three feet deep, with tiles about five inches wide by 
twelve inches long. The branch drains are about two feet six 
inches deep, and are laid with tiles about four inches wide by 
twelve inches long. In some of the valleys, the substratum is 
of a loose mixture of sand and. gravel ; and in those places it 
was found necessary to adopt drains varying from five to eight 
feet deep, which pour forth large bodies of water, both in 
summer and winter. 

It may be said, such is the rapidity with which agricultural 
improvement is advancing in this country, that a great revolu- 
tion has been effected in the system of draining since these 
splendid improvements were accomplished; and that draining 
fully as efficient as the above is now reduced to one half of the 
expense. 

The country abounds with examples of agricultural improve- 
ment on the part of individual proprietors, if not upon so exten- 
sive a scale, yet, in proportion to the ability and means, quite as 
enterprising and spirited. It is truly delightful to witness such 
an application of wealth ; and the benevolent mind is never 
more disposed to envy the possession of power than when it is 
thus beneficently exerted. The erection of magnificent houses 
or palaces in a city, far beyond one's needs, I am not disposed to 
deny, does good, as it creates a demand for ingenious, industrious, 
and, to a degree, useful labor, and circulates a large amount of 

estate, arises from the carriage of tiles and soles being included in the former, 
which in the latter is done by the tenants Avithout charge. 

"The saving in Parii draining, in 1842 and 1843, was in labor chiefly, that 
being lower in 1842 and 1843 than in 1841 and 1842. 

" The additional saving in 1843 and 1844 was, by putting the drains one yard 
farther apart, viz., Gh yards, instead of 5^, as in former years. The depth of the 
drains was increased, and the labor also, but the value of the tiles saved in quan- 
tity was considerably more than the increase of labor. 

" The diflierence in cost of draining, between one part of tlie estate and another, 
is occasioned by the various sizes of the lands, as, in high-ridged and crooked 
lands, the drains follow the water furrows, at whatever distance they may be." 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 113 

wealth where it is needed. There is a pleasure, likewise, in 
contemplating the skill and architectural taste displayed in their 
structure, the beauty of their arrangements, and the luxury and 
splendor with which they are adorned and furnished. But often 
they are mere monuments of vanity and display ; they are a 
serious drawback upon the resources of the proprietor ; they are 
much beyond his wants and convenience ; they involve a neces- 
sity of a style of living which sometimes brings with it as 
much vexation as pleasure ; and the wealth which is expended 
upon them is locked up, to a great extent, in a profitless disuse, 
or otherwise may be considered, as far as it exceeds the neces- 
sities, or convenience, or uses of the proprietor, as irrecoverably 
thrown away. 

But how different are the results of the application of wealth 
to the purposes of agricultural improvement ; in converting land 
which is waste into that which is productive ; in the employ- 
ment of the poor in useful and healthful labor ; in increasing the 
means of human and brute subsistence ; in advancing the real 
v/ealth of the communitjr ; in the actual creation of wealth with- 
out loss or injury to any one ; in making improvements, which 
have in themselves a reduplicative energy, so that the more 
improvement is made, the more the power of improving is ex- 
tended and enlarged ; in exhibiting an example of skill and suc- 
cess which excites no ill-will, because it injures no man's in- 
terest, but is every where beneficial, and prompts to a wholesome 
emulation ; which leaves behind it not traces drawn in the sand, 
to be obliterated by every wave which time rolls upon the shore, 
but which are to endure for generations and centuries to come ; 
and which, in truth, constitutes one of the most honorable and 
enduring monuments, which a reasonable and w^ell-disciplined 
ambition of posthumous reputation and fame can desire or seek 
after ! 

7. Soils to be drained. — In reviewing this important subject 
of the drainage of land, — one, certainly, of the most important 
connected with the art of husbandry, — I deem it best to recapit- 
ulate some points, which have been partially noticed, and are to 
be deemed established. 

The removal of water from the land is, then, in all cases, 
indispensable to a successful cultivation. Where it proceeds 
10* 



114 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

from permanent springs, they must either be cut off or led away 
by a drain which shall directly reach them. There are very 
few lands which would not be benefited by draining. Wherever 
a spot is discovered in a field, where the water is accustomed 
to lodge, or which, from the coarseness or character of the 
herbage growing upon it, indicates the presence of water, we 
may feel sure that there the operations of draining are required. 
In the next place, it is desirable that the wetness arising from 
rain should be removed as soon as practicable. All the advan- 
tage which plants derive from rain are obtained from its imme- 
diate passage through the soil. Whenever its passage is arrested, 
and the water becomes stagnant, its presence is injurious, except- 
ing to plants which are, like rice, for example, of an aquatic, or, 
as it may be termed, an amphibious character. 

That soils of a light and sandy character are benefited by 
draining, I have had the fullest demonstration, and shall pres- 
ently show. That soils of a most retentive and adhesive char- 
acter have been greatly improved by it, seems to be established 
in many cases, though there are instances of failure in this 
respect ; and an intelligent and spirited agriculturist in York- 
shire, with whom I have the pleasure of an acquaintance, has 
proposed that analytical experiments should be made, to deter- 
mine what proportion of aluminous matter in a soil should dis- 
courage any attempts at improvement, by draining and subsoil- 
ing. Perfect success has followed the operation where the 
amount of clay or alumine has been as great as 24 per cent. ; 
and failures have occurred, where the proportion has been 43 
per cent., which induces the conclusion with him, that the 
boundary must lie somewhere between these two points. This, 
he thinks, experiment alone can decide. It must not be over- 
looked, however, that other circumstances besides the actual 
composition of the soil, may have affected the results. Mr. 
Hammond, before quoted, has been successful in draining heavy 
and adhesive soils, where, after the drains have been opened, and 
the pipes laid and but slightly covered, the frost has had an 
opportunity of operating upon the land, and occasion(?d fissures, 
which have been converted into permanent pores or channels for 
the water falling upon such land to reach the drains. There is 
always some encouragement in the simple fact, that one drop of 
water is sure, in its natural course, to follow another. There arc, 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 115 

however, undoubtedly, some soils, where, from their impervious 
character, draining would be almost hopeless. It is difficult to 
pronounce beforehand what soils come under this description. 
It is certain that many soils, which were considered beyond the 
reach of this species of improvement, have been subjected to it 
with great and permanent advantage. In many cases, the char- 
acter of the soil, whether suitable or unsuitable for drainage, 
might be easily ascertained by sinking a hole of the depth to 
which it is proposed to drain, and, securing it from the access of 
rain, or of water running upon the surface, ascertain whether 
any water would filter into it. 

8. Association for Drainage. — The drainage of land upon 
the most improved principles and method, may be considered in 
England as a branch of engineering, to the successful application 
of which both science and much practice and experience are 
requisite. For an individual to undertake it upon any exten- 
sive scale, without sufficient knowledge and skill, would be 
likely to terminate in disappointment and loss. It would seem 
as though no better plan could be adopted than that which has 
been recently undertaken, viz., the organization, with an ample 
capital, of a draining association. This company, under the 
name of the West of England and South Wales Land Draining 
Company, propose to establish, in different and convenient parts 
of the country, where the clay is abundant and suitable, tileries 
for the manufacture of pipe tiles ; they mean to secure to them- 
selves always the services of accomplished and practical engi- 
neers, and, having proper tools and experienced workmen, they 
will undertake the effectual drainage of whole farms, guaranty- 
ing that the work shall be executed in a correct and perfect 
manner ; and in this way at a great saving of trouble, and at a 
great deal less expense than it could be effected by individual 
effort and enterprise. It is difficult to conceive of an arrange- 
ment from which, if skilfully and liberally managed, more ad- 
vantages may result. An extensive and thorough system of 
drainage will, beyond all question, effect for England the greatest 
and best improvement, in an agricultural view, which can pos- 
sibly be looked for. '• The effect produced on the crops of close, 
retentive soils, after they have been perfectly drained and subsoil- 
ploughed," says Mr. Morton, " is most astonishing. The prod- 



116 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

uce is so much increased, that it will, in many instances, pay 
the expenses in a year or two ; and wet soils, which seemed to 
be strong clay when wet, become friable, and even light, when 
completely subsoil-drained, are easily cultivated, and light enough 
for producing turnips to be fed off with sheep. Complete or 
perfect drainage is the foundation of all improvements in hus- 
bandry ; it should, therefore, be the first step which we take in 
attempting to improve or ameliorate the soil." 

9. The Process of Draining. — In looking at a field or piece 
of land, which is proposed to be drained, the first thing to be 
ascertained is, what fall can be had for removing the water. A 
fall of one in two hundred is stated, by practical men, to be the 
extreme on one side ; but it is desirable to get, if possible, one in 
a hundred. With such an inclination, the drains are more likely 
to be kept free from sediment. The next step to be taken is, to 
lay out and form a main ditch or drain, into Avhich all the small 
drains shall empty themselves, and the water be carried off. 
This, of course, must be in the lower part of the land, and it is 
generally advised to let it remain open, that the mouths of the 
small drains may be observed and watched. Where left open, 
as at the model farm of Lord Ducie, there the inclination of the 
sides is so easy that they are cultivated to the water's edge. It 
is advised, in other cases, to let the side drains empty into a com- 
mon main drain, which is to be covered ; and this main drain is 
to empty itself into an open ditch. The principal reason as- 
signed for having all the underground parallel drains empty 
themselves into the main, and through that into the ditch, in- 
stead of each emptying itself into the ditch, is, that while, in the 
latter case, a hundred mouths would require to be kept open and 
clear of rubbish, in the former only one has to be attended to ; 
and also that, during the summer months, some of the parallel 
drains would become dry, and allow the entrance of moles and 
rats, which would soon stop them up ; but that the quantity of 
water which always issues from a main drain would forbid their 
entrance, and thus hinder them from injuring it or the others.* 
Where the bottom of the drain, however, is formed with broken 
stones, there is no danger from this circumstance ; and where the 

* Morton. 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 117 

pipe drains of only one inch bore are used, they do not admit of 
the entrance of vermin. On Mr. Smith's plan, however, the 
main drains are covered as well as the side drains, and the en- 
trance or outlet of the main drain may be protected by an iron 
grating, or a foot or two of broken stone laid down at the end. 
It is advised that the main drain should be sunk six inches 
lower than the side drains ; but where pipes are used, the side 
drains may enter directly into the main drains, the pipes being 
made with a hole in the side, for this express purpose. It has 
been found quite effectual, in some cases, to lay two pipes for a 
main drain, side by side ; but it would seem most desirable to 
have a pipe of a large bore for the main drain, and of a sufficient 
size to receive all the water which should be emptied into it 
from the side drains. Such pipes, at Mr. Stirling's, near Fal- 
kirk, were of a very large bore, and made in three parts, so as 
exactly to fit each other when brought together. The advantage 
of a concave or circular bottom for the water to flow in, in pref- 
erence to a flat sole, must be obvious at first thought. Tiles 
have been constructed with a circular bottom, like a horse-shoe 
set upon its front edge, and a flat cover to rest upon it ; but I 
can see no advantage which this has over a pipe ; unless it might 
be that, by the removal of the cover, the seat of any obstruction 
might be ascertained without lifting the whole. 

It is often found necessary to make what are called siihmam 
drains, which of course communicate with the main drain. This 
must depend upon the nature of the ground, and where these 
submains are made on the side of a hill, they are best made ob- 
liquely, crossing the small drains diagonally, and thus giving an 
impulse to the water received into them. It is advised, in all 
cases, to make the parallel drains, which connect with the main 
or the submain, straight, whether running on level land, or on a 
side hill ; and it is deemed best that no small or parallel drain 
should ever exceed two hundred yards in length, without empty- 
ing into a main or a submain drain. The distance at which the 
drains should be placed apart may vary with the nature of the 
soil, from a rod to forty or sixty feet. It may be interesting to 
know the length of drainage, or of pipe, which may be required 
in an acre, at the difterent distances which are customarily 
adopted. I subjoin, therefore, the following table : — 



118 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



Distance between 
Drains. 


Length of Drains 
in Furlongs. 


Feet of Pipes. 


66 
44 
33 

22 
16i 


1 

2 
3 
4 


660 

990 

1320 

1980 

2640 



'' On the heavy lands of Suffolk, and the adjoining counties," 
says one farmer, "under-draining at a distance of 16J feet, and 
at a depth of 26 or 30 inches, is as much a matter of routine as 
hedging and ditching." This depth would now be deemed 
quite insufficient. 

The mode of covering drains is various. Where the drains 
are filled with broken stones, it is advised to lay upon the top 
of the stones an inverted sod, and then return the dirt which has 
J^een taken out. Where a pipe or tile and sole are used, the 
same advice may be given. In adhesive or clayey soils, it is 
deemed quite objectionable to return the clay, and ram it in 
closely upon the pipe. It has been deemed important, by some 
persons, that alternate pipes of a large and a small bore should 
be used, so that the small pipes may enter the larger ones, and 
that there should be no interruption of continuity between them. 
In some cases, rings of clay have been formed, into which the 
ends of the two pipes might enter, so as to close the interstice, 
and retain the pipes upon a level. This is not, hoAvever, deemed 
necessary. Where the bottom is hard, and the pipes carefully 
placed, there is no danger, afterwards, of their getting, if the term 
may be allowed, misfitted ; in cases where the bottom is sandy 
or loose, more pains must be taken to prevent this, which is 
easily done by an experienced and careful drainer. 



10. Examples of Drainage in Ireland. — I have now, I 
believe, enumerated the principal points to be observed in drain- 
ing a piece of land according to the most improved system. 
With a view the better to illustrate this important subject, I 
subjoin a plan of the drainage of a farm in Ireland, belonging to 
Messrs. Andrews, of Comber, county Down, (see p. 120,) together 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING. 119 

with their general account of the process. This was executed 
exactly according to the directions of Mr. Smith, of Deanston, 
with tiles, and a foot of broken stone laid in upon them ; and 
before the pipe tiles had received so much of the public appro- 
bation as has since been deservedly bestowed upon them. 

" The accompanying map represents that portion of the lands 
in the townland of Carnesure, which has been thorough-drained 
up to the present time. Another part of tlie farm, in the town- 
land of Comber, containing 19i acres, was drained in 1841. 
The specification on the map exhibits the quantities drained in 
the respective years 1841, 1842, 1843, and 1844, each of which 
comprised the portion which the course of cropping enabled 
them to manure, and to place under green crops in the succeed- 
ing year. 

" In the year 1843, they completed the thorough-draining of 
58 a. 3 r. 7 p. statute measure, by the execution of 7172 statute 
perches parallel, 793 perches submain, and 128 perches main 
drains ; and in 1844, 58 a. 1 r. 37 p., by 7720 perches parallel, 
781 submain, and 20 perches of main drains, being, in the years 
1843 and 1844, 117 a. 1 r. 4 p. statute measure, viz. — 
14,892 perches statute of parallel drains. 
1,574 " u u submain " 

148 " " " main " 

" The mode of execution has been precisely the same as that 
which Mr. Smith characterized as ' most thoroughly following 
out the Deanston system.' In the whole of the land drained, 
there is not one open channel for water ; all the water passes 
away under ground, and the wheat seed on the potato land has 
this year been covered with the grubber, without any ploughing, 
after the removal of the potatoes, leaving the land perfectly flat, 
and without a furrow, as recommended by Mr. Smith, so that 
every stalk of grain will benefit equally from both the soil and 
the atmosphere ; and during the late rains, even on sloping 
ground, not a particle of the fine soil has been washed from the 
land, while, in the undrained lands around, the roads and ditches 
are filled with the fine deposits from the streams of water which 
have rolled down the furrows, and the rivers are red with the 
still finer matter which they are hurrying to the bottom of the sea. 
This advantage is attained without any attendant evil ; they 
look to the total abolition of every water-furrow from the fields " 



120 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



Plan of the Thorough Draining on Part of the Townland of Carnesure^ 
the Property of Messrs. Andrews, of Comber, County Down, to lohich 
the Gold Medal of the Society was awarded for 1844. 




(rrourid drained in IS^l, contains 

Do do... in 1842, ..do. . . 

Do do. . .in 1813,. .do. . . 

Do do. . . in 1844. . . do. . . 



REFERENCE. 



A. 


R. 


p. 


15 





22 


70 


1 


14 


58 


3 


7 


58 


1 


37 


202 


3 






Ijcnjitli of 
Main Drains. 



— perches. 
148 . . do. . 
128 . . do. . 
20 . . do. . 



290 



Leneth of Sub- 
main Drains. 



154 perches. 
715. .do. . 
793 . . do. . 
781 . . do. . 



2443, 



Letiffth of Par- 
allel Drains. 



2018perclies. 
8370 . . do. 
7172 . . do. 
7720 . . do. 



25280 



Note. — Main Drains are shown thus, 

Siibmain Drains thus, 

Parallel Drains, thus, 



TILE AND PIPK DRAINING. 121 

" The parallel drains are at least 30 inches deep, with 12 inches 
of small stones; the siibmains are G inches deeper, laid with 
slates and tiles, and filled with stones to the level of the parallel 
drains, and both are careftdly levelled, turfed, and firmly 
tramped ; and the mains, flagged in the bottom, built with dry 
masonry, and covered with coarse flags, are placed at depths, and 
constructed of dimensions, in all cases exceeding what Mr. Smith 
has considered suflicient to carry ofi" the entire water from the 
submains, during and subsequently to the heaviest falls of rain. 

" The soil, as stated in last Report, rests on the grauwacke 
slate formation, and the subsoil, as described by Mr. Smith, 
' consists chiefly of a clay drift, with gravel stones thickly inter- 
spersed, and occasional boulders of considerable size.' 

" The work of thorough draining of every year has been fol- 
lowed up in the succeeding year by subsoil-ploughing. Ail the 
land drained in 1843 was subsoiled and in green crops in 1844, 
and that drained in 1844 has been undergoing the process of 
subsoiling, which will soon be completed." 

" As regards the profits to be derived from capital expended 
in thorough-draining," these gentlemen say, " our experience 
fully realizes our largest expectations. In green crops the 
increased return is most conspicuous. In undrained land in a 
wet year, potatoes and turnips have ever proved wretched crops; 
and all attempts to clean the ground have invariably failed. In 
1840, our crop of potatoes on wet land did not exceed 200 bush- 
els per Cunningham acre ; this year we ascertained, by actually 
weighing, on the weigh-bridge, the entire crop of potatoes, of the 
kind called cups, from field No. 4, containing above 17 statute 
acres, (excluding the head lands from the calculation, both as to 
crop and measurement,) that the produce was, 

Tons. Cwt. 

Per statute acre, 472 bushels, of 56 lbs. each, or 1 1 16 
Per Cunningham or Scotch acre, 610 . . . .15 5 
Per Irish acre, 766 19 3 

" And on field No. 7, several trials were made of drills dug the 
length of the field, the kinds being lumpers and other coarse 
varieties ; and the produce was at least one sixth greater than that 
of the cups. 

" This we regard as very great produce, and the difference 
11 



122 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

between such a crop and the starved produce of 1840, on land 
equally good, would more than doubly repay the entire cost in 
one year. On the average of wet years, we think it may fairly 
be reckoned, that the increased return of one green crop would 
amply repay the costs of draining. Of the increased return from 
white crops we cannot yet speak so definitely ; but the crops on 
our drained land have been very luxuriant and satisfactory, and 
the weight of the wheat which was threshed for seed in Novem- 
ber this year, was 63f lbs. per bushel, which exceeds what we 
have ever before experienced, in the best years, on our farm. 

" The clover and grass seeds have all succeeded much better 
than we have been accustomed to for many years, and are now 
luxuriant, and thickly planted on lands which have for some 
years appeared clover sick ; probably owing to the treasures of 
the subsoil being laid open to them, and possibly also to the 
higher temperature of the dry soil preventing the injury by frost 
to the crowns of the clover plants, to which some observers have 
attributed the failure of clover. 

" That the subsoil is so laid open, is abundantly proved by 
the roots striking downwards, as far as the depth of the drains 
admits air to the subsoil ; for we have extracted from our drained 
land the tap-roots of Swedish turnips more than two feet in 
length. Nature having doubtless taught them to search in the 
subsoil for that inorganic food, of which the upper soil, by long 
cropping, had been largely exhausted, but which subsoil they 
would not have dared to penetrate, had it been saturated with 
stagnant moisture, to the exclusion of atmospheric air. 

" We do not feel it necessary to enter into any further details 
or observations; we can confidently recommend all who may 
read this Report to embark in the same course of improvement, 
which we at first commenced with caution, and have pursued 
and extended with increasing confidence and satisfaction as we 
proceeded. The expenditure has been serious ; but we entertain 
no doubt of an ample remuneration," 

To this I shall subjoin the statements of another eminent im- 
prover in Ireland, who has very successfully drained land to a 
large extent. 

" The character of the land drained is mostly an adhesive 
clay, and the subsoil of a bluish-yellow clay, with a mixture of 
large stones, forming a very retentive and impervious mass. 



TILE AND PIPE DRAINING, 123 

The rock, which is of the graiiwacke slate, comes near the sur- 
face, and in some instances prevented the drains being cut as 
deep as might have been wished. The average height of the 
land drained is about 200 feet above the level of the sea, with a 
western aspect. The higher portion of it, previous to being 
drained, was wet, shallow, and sterile, and the lower part a heavy, 
stiff clay, which, in unfavorable seasons, was almost impossible 
to prepare for drilled crops. The effect of the drainage on all 
this land is very conspicuous, particularly on 140 acres which 
have been subsoiled. The land is now a deep and free soil, pro- 
ducing excellent crops of potatoes, turnips, and carrots, when pre- 
viously it was quite unsuited to drilled crops. 

" I would, however, from any conclusions I can draw from 
experience, beg to recommend, in ordinary cases, where the rock 
does not interfere, and where sufficient fall can be obtained, that 
the drains should be cut at least three feet deep, and that tiles 
and soles, or pipe-tiles, should be used in preference to stones, 
both as to efficiency, and above all to permanency. 

" I am fully satisfied, in the greater number of instances, that 
much expense may be spared in materials for filling, by increasing 
the distance between, and adding to the depth of the drains. One 
great advantage in favor of the deep drains is, that they are cal- 
culated to be more permanent, and that, while in wet weather 
they discharge fully as much water, they continue in operation 
a much longer time, and in many instances continue to give out 
water for weeks after the shallow drains have ceased to discharge 
upon similar soils. 

" The following is a description of the manner in which the 
drains at Ballyleidy have been executed : The submains are 
laid off on a considerable declivity, and cut six inches deeper 
than the parallel drains, with a slate and a large tile laid in the 
bottom of each, with stones carefully coupled over the tiles, and 
six inches of broken stones placed over all, then neatly turfed. 
Iron grates arc built in at the mouths, where these submains 
discharge, so as effectually to prevent the entrance of any kind 
of vermin. I am now satisfied that the most permanent sub- 
mains are two tiles reversed, forming a pipe, and thus confining 
the water so as to give it force and pressure,, to clear away all 
obstructions. 

" The parallel drains were neatly cut, and, where stones were 



124 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

used, filled 13 inches deep, the stones regularly levelled, which 
were all screened, and broken, to pass through a three-inch ring ; 
then covered with a thin sod, which was well tramped down. 

" When the tiles and stones were both used, about 25 tons of 
well-broken stones were put over the tiles to the acre, and the 
drains well sodded. 

" It was also found necessary to build a large main drain for 
conveying the water from about four hundred acres, through a 
large tract of ground, which added considerably to the expense. 

" In May, 1844, preparation for turnips was commenced upon 
it, and all parties previously acquainted with it were astonished 
at the change. It had become deep, free, and open, one plough- 
ing and harrowing being quite sufficient to prepare it for drilling. 
Fifty barrels of lime to the acre was applied, after the first stroke 
of the harrow, and then well harrowed in with a heavy iron 
harrow, mixing it minutely vv^ith the soil, to the depth of 5 or 6 
inches. It was then drilled and sown with Swedish turnips on 
the Gth and 7th of June — part being manured with 4 cwt. of 
guano to the acre, and part with 2 cwt. of guano and 12 bush- 
els of crushed bones : the result has been a superior crop — the 
medal given by the Royal Agricultural Society to local societies, 
for the best cultivated 5 acres of turnips, having been awarded by 
the Bangor Farming Society for this crop. I have every reason 
to believe that all kinds of crops usually grown in this neigh- 
borhood may in future be grown on it successfully ; that they 
may be sown or planted at times, particularly after heavy rains^ 
which would have been impossible before draining, and that in 
all cases, with the same manure and labor, there will be fully 
one third of an increase in the crop." 

This gentleman proceeds with some observations, which are 
quite worth recording. 

" It may be proper to remark why it is that I recommend 
drains to be made deeper and farther apart than those which 
have been executed at Ballyleidy ; and why I prefer tiles, 
while a large portion of the drains at Ballyleidy have been made 
with stones. 

" In the first case, it is from the experience obtained by a 
careful examination of the effects produced by drains of different 
depths, that I have become convinced of the superiority of deep 
over shallow drains. With respect to stones, it was a matter of 



SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH THOHOUfJlI-BRAINlNG. 125 

necessity using them here, as I have been long satisfied that 
tiles or pipes are preferable. It was only the difficulty of obtain- 
ing tiles in time at a reasonable price, which prevented them 
being used in all cases. I may also observe, that 1 have in 
many instances put stones over tiles, but now believe that even 
in the stifiest clay this is unnecessary, the drains which have 
been made with tiles alone being equally efficacious. The tiles, 
where stones are not put over them, are less liable to be injured 
or broken, and of course calculated to be more permanent — an 
object which, in such an important improvement, should never 
be lost sight of." 



CII. — SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH 
THOROUGH-DRAINING. 

I have given these general examples of thorough-draining, 
which might be multiplied, under my own observation, to a very 
great extent, and have to add that this improvement is prepara- 
tory to subsoil-ploughing, and intimately connected with it. 

I have already fully described the nature of subsoil- ploughing. 
Trench-ploughing is sometimes mentioned. By trench-plough- 
ing, the under soil is brought to the surface, and, in fact, it is no 
other than deep ploughing, and is created by passing a second 
time in the ploughed furrow. In subsoiling, the lower stratum 
is stirred and broken, but not inverted. 

Subsoil-ploughing is never to be recommended without first 
draining, unless in cases where the lower soil is extremely loose 
and porous, so that the water can pass immediately off. The 
late Mr. Rham, a distinguished farmer, attempted this upon an 
adhesive soil, but found that, to use his own expression, it held 
water as a sponge, and became quite unmanageable, until he pro- 
ceeded completely to thorough-drain it with tiles. " Until there is 
an escape for the water through the subsoil, any opening of it but 
provides a greater space for holding water, and will rather tend 
to injure than improve the soil." 
11* 



126 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

1. Results of Subsoiling and Draining. — The improve- 
ments effected by the process of thorough-draining and subsoil- 
ing have been most remarkable. The manager of the farm of 
Sir Robert Peel says, " that he can confidently state, that the crop 
of turnips, after the above treatment, was four times the quantity 
in weight ever produced in the same field at any previous time." 
Mr. Smith says, in an early treatise on this subject, that which 
has been fully confirmed by subsequent experience, that, "when 
land has been thoroughly drained, deeply wrought, and well 
manured, the most unpromising, sterile soil becomes a deep, rich 
loam, rivalling in fertility the best natural land in the country, 
and from being fitted for raising only scanty crops of common 
oats, will bear good crops of from 32 to 48 bushels of wheat; 30 
to 40 bushels of beans, 40 to 60 bushels of barley, and from 48 
to 70 bushels of early oats, per statute acre, besides potatoes, 
turnips, mangel-wurzel, and carrot, as green crops, and which 
all good agriculturists know are the abundant producers of the 
best manure. It is hardly possible to estimate all the advantages 
of dry and deep land. Every operation in husbandry is thereby 
facilitated and cheapened ; less seed and less manure produce a 
full effect ; the chances of a good and early preparation for sowing 
are greatly increased — a matter of great importance in a preca- 
rious climate ; and there can be no doubt that even the climate 
itself will be much improved by the general prevalence of dry 
land." 

Mr. Smith further remarks upon the improvement of the 
soil upon his own highly-cultivated and conditioned farm 
at Doune, which I had the great pleasure of inspecting, that, 
'• when he commenced these operations upon his own farm, on a 
part of it he had not more than from four to four and a half 
inches of surface soil ; but having applied the system of thorough 
draining to it, and used the subsoil-plough, he can now turn up 
more than sixteen inches of good soil, and it is not more than 
twenty years since he began." 

2. Failures in Subsoiling in adhesive and heavy Soils. — 
I cannot say that this process Avithin my observation has been 
without failures. Mr. Swarfield, the intelligent manager of the 
beautiful estate at Chatsworth, informed me that it had hot been 



SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH THOROUGH-DRAINING. 127 

successful with him. My respected friend, Mr. Spencer, on his 
well-cultivated farm at Bransby, in Lincolnshire, complained of 
its being ineffectual, from the soil being too adhesive and heavy, 
and soon running together, and becoming as compact as before 
breaking up. Mr. Black, in Yorkshire, the steward of the Earl 
of Zetland, says that one of his subsoiled fields produced 
thirty-five, and the other twenty-seven and a half bushels of 
wheat per acre ; the field that produced the greatest immber of 
bushels per acre was subsoiled across the drains, the other par- 
allel with them ; ploughing across the drains he deems decidedly 
the best method. This was in 1838. In December, 1839, one 
of the fields was ploughed, but no traces remained of the subsoil- 
plough having been used. "I expected," he adds, "from the 
complete breaking up of the subsoil, that the parts would have 
remained distinct for years ; but such w^as not the case ; they 
had all run together, and Avere as compact as when first moved 
by the plough, without even the appearance of a water-shake or 
fissure. This I was not prepared to expect. Separated by a 
fence only is another field of a similar description, which was 
fallow at the same time, but not subsoiled ; the crop on this field 
was quite equal to the other. A neighbor subsoiled one acre of 
a field, which was sown with beans ; this field I frequently saw 
through the summer, and, during that period, the part subsoiled 
was by no means superior to the other." Another farmer of 
Kirkleatham, in Yorkshire, whose experiments were conducted 
in a judicious and effectual manner, says that he is satisfied that 
subsoiling is of no permanent use upon his soil. The quality 
of the land in all these cases is the same, and consists of a level, 
uniform tract, of a peculiarly tenacious soil, called the lias clay, 
containing, by analysis, more than 43 per cent, of alumina, or pure 
clay. Mr. Black remarks, that "the soil which will receive 
the most permanent improvement from subsoil-ploughing is one 
in which silica predominates ; indeed, all shallow soils of the 
lighter kinds will be improved by it, and particularly so if there 
is any moorland pan, or indurated incrustations, formed by the 
weight of the plough going for a number of years at the same 
depth, or from other causes. If the subsoil is of good quality, 
and a greater depth of furrow is wished for, the subsoil-pl»ugh 
may be used with great advantage ; the percolation of water pre- 
pares the subsoil for amalgamation with the surface. Strong 



128 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

clayey land cannot be permanently improved by subsoil- 
ploughing." 

I have felt bound to give these statements of intelligent prac- 
tical farmers, though I might show many opposite results, which 
would lead one to suppose that there may have been something 
peculiar in the execution of the work. The same result has 
followed to a degree at Wimpole, the estate of the Earl of 
Hardwicka, a farm, which, in many respects, for careful manage- 
ment, and especially for the admirable arrangement and order 
observed in every thing connected with the farm premises, is not 
surpassed by any which has come under my observation. 

It may, however, be considered as to a degree settled, that the 
very strong and adhesive clays in the application of this system 
of thorough-draining and subsoiling are to be looked at with a 
good deal of distrust ; yet the certain success which has attended 
many attempts to drain a strong soil, by very deep and frequent 
draining, and by giving a fair opportunity, after the drains were 
opened, for the operation of excessive heat or excessive cold, in 
loosening and rending the soil, scarcely permits us to despair of 
some improvement in almost any case. 

3. Success in subsoiling sandy and light Lands. — The 
application of this mode of improvement to light, sandy land 
may excite some surprise ; and yet its beneficial effects, in such 
cases, have been, within my own knowledge, so fully established, 
that I think proper to dwell upon them at some length. 

At the estate of Sir John Easthope, in Surrey, where many 
discouragements in the way of soil have been skilfully and suc- 
cessfully contended with, I saw the beneficial effects of subsoil- 
ing and draining strongly exemplified, in a soil of a sandy, grav- 
elly, thin, porous character ; the part so operated upon presenting 
a striking and beautiful contrast to another part of the field under 
the same cropping, which had not been so managed. To this 
experiment I have already referred. But more fully to illustrate 
this subject, I shall quote from a communication made by Mr. 
Denison, of Kilnwick Percy, Yorkshire, to H. S. Thompson, Esq., 
and given by him to the public in a valuable paper on subsoil- 
ploughing, in the Transactions of the Yorkshire Agricultural 
Society for 1840. 

"Few have been hitherto met with v/ho would not ridicule 



SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH THOROUGH-DRAINING. 129 

the idea of applying the operation of subsoil-ploughing and 
thorough-draining to light, blow-away sand; and as it is to this 
latter description of land that I have chiefly turned my attention 
and experiments, I will confine myself to what I really know 
and have experienced. 

" I will now mention the mode in which I have brought a 
considerable tract of sandy land into cultivation ; and I feel so 
thoroughly grateful to the subsoil-plough for the share it has had 
in my success, that I cannot do sufficient justice to it without 
fully explaining the system upon Avhich I worked. 

" The tract of land upon which I began was in extent about 
400 acres, the principal part of which was rabbit warren. The 
general character of this tract was, that although, upon the 
whole, it was nearly a level, yet the surface was undulating ; 
the sandy swells being covered with heather, and the hollows, 
a bed of aquatic plants, being for many months in winter entirely 
covered with water. Of the sandy hills, the soil, as far as I am 
able to judge, was a sterile, impalpable sand, having been here- 
tofore cultivated, and again abandoned. About six or eight 
inches below the surface, this sandy soil seemed to become hard- 
ened into almost a sandstone, with the occurrence occasionally 
of an impervious bed of ironstone ; presenting, wherever it did 
occur, a complete obstacle to the entrance of the ploughshare : 
generally speaking, however, these nodules, or beds of ironstone, 
lay at a depth somewhat below the ordinary ploughings. The 
marshy hollows were of a totally different nature ; and their 
cultivation had never been attempted ; an idea apparently having 
prevailed, that they were below the reach of drainage. When 
become dry, the soil of these hollows appeared to be a black 
vegetable mould, extending to a considerable depth ; in some 
places peaty, in all containing a large proportion of inert vege- 
table matter. 

'•' Upon considering the character of this tract of land, I 
thought that the principle of subsoiling would be equally appli- 
cable to the light, sandy hillocks and the marshy levels. Upon 
the higher grounds, it was obvious that, when under cultivation, 
the sun had very great power over the six or eight inches of 
stirred soil, and that thus vegetation was either burnt up, or, if a 
strong ground-wind came, there was danger of the contents of 
one field being blown into another. If, therefore, by stirring to 



130 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the depth of sixteen instead of six inches, a greater volume of 
soil could be obtained, the power of retaining moisture would be 
proportionally increased, although the constituent parts of the 
surface remained unaltered ; for I never contemplated that which 
by some is confounded with, and by others preferred to, subsoil- 
ing j I mean trench-ploughing. I am of opinion that in very 
few cases, if any, is the soil underneath more fitted for vegeta- 
tion than that of the surface ; least of all in a case like the 
present : a hungry, ferruginous subsoil could be no amendment 
upon a surface however sterile. Experience has shown that 
this theory is correct, and that, on sandy soils, the advantage to 
be derived from subsoiling is from obtaining a greater depth, and 
consequently a greater power to absorb moisture. On the level, 
marshy portions of this tract, the benefits, though not so obvious 
in theory, have proved equally clear in practice. The subsoil- 
plough has broken through the mass of tough vegetable matter, 
tearing up the roots of rushes and other fen weeds, which were 
beyond the reach of the common plough. 

'■ My first operation was to carry a main drain through the 
whole estate ; and this was not only an expensive job, but one 
also which required considerable precision ; for upon the accuracy 
of its level depended the success of the whole drainage. Nor. 
when the drain was made, and the surface water conveyed away, 
was half the requisite treatment effected ; for it proved that the 
sandy elevations, of which I have so often spoken, were the 
receptacles of springs, so that, in the whole of the estate I pur- 
chased, though termed a sandy waste, there was hardly a single 
acre which did not require draining previous to subsoiling. 

'•' The main open drain being carried through, the next thing 
was to make main hollow drains, leading into it, bottomed with 
tiles, of the width and height of six inches, and covered with a 
sod, four inches thick, taken from the nearest hedge-side. I 
prefer sod to sticks, ling, or straw, for it allows the water to per- 
colate freely, and does not shrink. The depth of these leading 
tiled drains varies much, according to the undulations of the sur- 
face. In some cases, it was necessary to cut them between six 
and seven feet deep, — altogether at an average of four feet. 
Into these drains were brought the smaller ones, laid with tiles of 
the width and height of three and a half inches, placed at every 
twelve yards apart, and of the same average depth as the others. 



SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH THOROUGH-DRAINING. 131 

I consider it prudent to have in every five acres one leading drain, 
with an outlet into the main open one : the mouths of the outlets 
should be of wood kyanized, with a swing-door for the sake of 
preventing the possibility of the outlet being trodden up, or 
destroyed by frost acting upon the tiles. 

" The above particulars have been given somewhat at length, 
from the conviction of the great importance of effectual drainage, 
and that, without it, subsoil-ploughing will do more harm than 
good. 

" The first process, after the drains were complete, was in the 
months of March and April, to pare and burn, and to sow rape 
and turnips, drilled with half-inch bones and soot in the follow- 
ing month. The crop was not at all regular, being good where 
the soil was deep and black, but very bad where it was sandy ; 
the sole being hard, and the action of the sun having great 
power to the very roots of the plants. 

"In the winter of the same year, after the turnips and rape 
were consumed, I ploughed the land in the direction of the old 
farrows ; and the subsoil-plough folloioed, worked by two oxen 
and four horses, loosening the hard, sandy sole on the higher 
ground, and tearing up the roots of the rushes, &c., on the low. 
In this state the land lay till the month of April following, 
when Finlayson's drag-harrow was applied across the plough- 
ings, which brought up all the roots and rubbish to the surface : 
these were then raked off" and burnt. I then sowed the black 
Tartarian oats, and ploughed them in : the ground was then 
harrowed and pressed down with a clod-crushing roller, made by 
Mr. Croskill, of Beverley, which implement has been of the 
greatest service to me in almost every stage and crop. It has 
been the means of consolidating the earth, which would other- 
wise have been too light, and it has kept the moisture in also. 
It has a decided advantage over every other kind of roller in this 
respect, because it leaves an uneven surface instead of a flat one, 
from which the rain, in sandy land especially, is apt to run off" 
without nourishing or refreshing the crop.* 

" The oats came out very healthy, and had no check : in six- 
teen weeks from the time of sowing, they were reaped, and, 
when threshed, yielded lOJ quarters per acre, 8 bushels per 

* I shall hereafter describe this vahiable agricultural implement. — H. C. 



132 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

quarter, which were sold at 26 s. per quarter, — and this from 
land that was let two years before at 2 s. 6 d. per acre. 

" I sowed forty acres with oats, of the same flat of land that 
had been pared and burnt, but not subsoil-ploughed, from want 
of time. The produce of this was not more than 3 qrs. per acre, 
and straw small and short — a very fair proof of the advantage 
of subsoiling. 

" I have now 100 acres of wheat and oats growing on what 
was the very worst part of the whole property, and considered 
perfectly useless. It has been drained, pared, and burnt, and 
subsoiled exactly after the mode above detailed ; and it looks as 
promising as what was so good last year. The land upon which 
I had potatoes, exhibits as decided a superiority." 

4. Success of subsoiling on thin, peaty Ground. — I think 
proper to subjoin the account of a Mr. Croft, of his operations 
upon a different kind of land. 

Mr. Croft, of Hutton Bushel, who occupies some moorland 
Oil the calc-grit, thus describes the effect of subsoiling : — 

'•' The surface soil is little more than half a spade deep, not 
positively peat, but next akin to it ; at this time of year, (No- 
vember,) it was always fetlock deep: under this is the pan. 
about two inches thick, and as hard as iron. We broke a pick- 
axe in getting a specimen. Below the pan is the rubbly soil, of 
which I also send a specimen for analysis. On this land nothing 
would grow. In summer, the crops would appear healthy and 
good, but before harvest, always dwindled away. I found it 
impossible to use the subsoil-plough Avith four horses ; but by 
fixing a wheel to it, (which made it work much steadier,) and 
using six horses, we got on tolerably well, though it was very 
hard work for both horses and man. Immediately after subsoil- 
ing, I sowed oats with Sinclair's grass seeds. I had a full crop 
of oats, so heavy, indeed, that they were all fiat on the ground, 
and not ripe till November : the seeds have been hard stocked 
all this year with sheep and young horses, which, as you know, 
are the worst of all stock for year-old seeds ; but the herbage is 
good, and the land quite firm. Before subsoiling, the land was 
not worth 5 s. an acre : it is now let at a guinea." 

" In this case, the advantages of subsoiling were great and 
immediate, and evidently arose from the drainage effected by 



SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH THOROUGH-DRAINING. 133 

breaking up the pan, which was impervious to water ; whilst tfie 
rubble below was highly porous, and aflbrdsd a ready passage to 
the stagnant water which caused the previous sterility." 

5. Importance of Subsoiling and Draining, and their Ap- 
plication TO THE United States. — I hope no apology will be 
required by my readers for having gone so much at large into 
this subject. The thorough-draining and subsoil-ploughing of 
land constitute, in my judgment, the great modern improvement 
of English husbandry ; and in their more extended application 
to lands which are now comparatively waste and profitless, or 
at best very restricted in their produce, and to lands which 
have been long cultivated, the productive capacities of which 
have been very imperfectly brought out, and to lands which 
have been productive, and hitherto supposed to have reached 
their maximum of yield, they seem destined to increase the 
products of the country beyond any calculations which have 
yet been made. 

That such an improvement is applicable to many parts of the 
United States, — I mean especially the older states, where land has 
already reached a high value, — cannot be doubted. I know many 
farms and many tracts of country, where, by such a process, the 
product of the land might be expected to be doubled ; and I have a 
confident hope that, in parts of the country where wheat now is 
liable to be thrown out by the severity of the frosts, or to suffer 
blight from the wetness of the soil, to which, in many cases, blight 
is to be attributed, we may, by means of this great improvement, 
be enabled to grow wheat with' success. Our crops of potatoes, 
which we generally plant by preference in low lands, are often 
destroyed by excessive wetness arising from heavy rains, which 
remain on the top of the soil, for want of ready and sufficient 
drainage. I have known, in repeated instances, the seed to be 
destroyed in the spring ; and the crop in the autumn to be rotted, 
in such cases, after it had become ready for the harvest. 

6. Objections to this Improvement. — I foresee only two or 
three objections to the adoption of this improvement in the 
United States. In laying drains of clay pipes or tiles, the very 
severe frosts, especially in the northern parts of the country, are 
liable to break them to pieces at the outlet of such drains ; but 

12 



134 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

this may be guarded against by laying three feet of the ends of 
the drains with broken stones, through which the water would 
find its way. The pipes or tiles laid three feet, or even two feet, 
below the surface, would not be affected by the frost. 

The next objection is in the difficulty of finding suitable per- 
sons to execute the work. An extensive system of draining, to 
be well executed, — and unless it can be well executed, it is better 
that it should not be attempted at all, — requires, in the laying out 
of the work, skill, and science, and experience ; and as yet, a 
class of skilful, scientific, and experienced drainers can scarcely 
be said to exist among us. Time and demand, as in all other 
cases, may, however, soon produce them. The laborers, to exe- 
cute the work, likewise, are not so readily found. No native 
American laborer, among the thousands whom I have known or 
employed, would have had patience, application, perseverance, and 
constancy sufficient to execute drains after the perfect and scrupu- 
lously exact manner in which they are made in England. Our 
habits of haste, our anxiety to arrive at our object by the shortest 
possible way, — for a genuine Yankee may always be known by 
his crossing a street, in spite of mud or dirt, diagonally, rather than 
going to the corner and crossing at right angles on the regular 
flagging, — our habitual conceit of our superior judgment, corre- 
sponding, in general, in a direct ratio with the ignorance of the 
party, which disdains to be directed or taught, are all national 
peculiarities, which operate against any minute, precise, and 
exact labor. There would be no difficulty, at any time, — such 
are the accustomed habits of the division of labor, — in finding any 
numbers of Englishmen, ten of whom are content to be employed 
during the whole of their lives in the formation of one pin at a 
time ; but a Yankee would at once undertake to do the whole 
himself — with what advantage, as it respects the perfect execu- 
tion of the article itself, I must leave others to judge. In many 
cases, however, we may take advantage of the labors and expe- 
rience of those emigrant laborers who are planting themselves in 
vast numbers in a coinitry affording singular advantages to a 
poor man, who is at the same time frugal, temperate, and indus- 
trious. Unless the work can be executed in the most careful, 
thorough, exact, and skilful manner, I strongly advise — if I may 
be allowed, with all possible respect and good-will, to give my 
advice — that it should not be undertaken. The half execution. 



SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH THOROUGH-DRAINING. 135 

or the imperfect execution, of it often brings many a good thing 
into disrepute, and proves a great bar to improvement. 

But the great objection which will be urged will undoubtedly 
be the want of capital, and the expensive character of such im- 
provements. That they are expensive there can be no doubt; 
but in all such cases there are only two questions to be asked. 
First, have I the means of executing them ? If the means are 
not within a man's reach, of course he should remember the 
fate of him who fell under general reproach, because " he began 
to build, and was not able to finish." The second question is, 
"Will the improvement pay? Will it produce an adequate re- 
turn ? " Then the cost of it is only to be considered in reference to 
the return which it will make ; and the agricultural improver, in 
such case, is to be governed by the same principles by which 
the conduct of shrewd men is directed and regulated in other 
business transactions. 

I can only say, that, in England, with scarcely an exception, 
as far as I have seen, the improvement is sure to be remunerative 
in a very high degree ; and for that reason the government are 
proposing a most beneficent measure in offering the loan of cap- 
ital, upon adequate security, for the accomplishment of such im- 
provements, and in other cases allowing the owners of entailed 
estates to raise a certain amount upon the mortgage of such 
estates for the same purpose. Within my own observation, in 
my own country, where such improvements have been judi- 
ciously effected, though on a comparatively very limited scale, 
the result has afforded an ample compensation. I know quite 
well how all agricultural improvements, involving a considerable 
outlay of expense, and attended with some necessary delay in 
the returns, are commonly sneered at in our active and bustling 
community, by some persons, who are constantly in a state of 
the most feverish anxiety to find a shorter way to wealth, to 
reach it, if I may so say, on a railroad line, and by an express 
train; but I believe I may add with confidence, and that after 
not a short experience, that judicious investments in the profit- 
able improvement of land, though they may have been at first 
expensive, have, in the course of time, proved as profitable as, 
and always much more secure than, most of the moneyed specula- 
tions in which the business public have been engaged. 

7. Read's Subsoil Pulverizer. — T ousiht not to close this 



136 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



subject of subsoiling and draining, without notice of an imple- 
ment which has, in these cases, proved of great utihty ; 1 mean 
Read's subsoil pulverizer. I have already given a description 
of two subsoil-ploughs. This instrument, which can scarcely be 
called a plough, is intended to accomplish the same purpose. I 
have not seen it at work, but I have the testimony of several per- 
sons in its favor. The great advantages claimed for it are, that 
it does its work effectually and with much less expense of labor, 
on account of its suspension upon wheels, than other ploughs, 
requiring only two horses to use it. " The improvement," says 
the inventor, " consists in carrying the weight of the machine on 
two pairs of wheels of equal diameter, and placed in the same 
line, so that the implement offers no greater resistance to the 
cattle than is required by the action of the shares or tines to 
break up or stir the subsoil." It is represented as highly 
useful, when fitted with tines or hoes, for scarifying between 
rows of beans, turnips, mangel-wurzel, or potatoes, requiring one 
or two horses, and also for working hop-gardens. I subjoin an 
engraving of it. It is, of course, when used for subsoiling, de- 
signed to follow in the furrow of a common plough. 



iiub- Pulverizer 




It will be interesting to my readers, if I subjoin the report of 
Mr. Parkes, the eminent engineer of the Royal Agricultural 
Society, upon the merits of this implement. 

" An implement was produced at the Southampton meeting, 
with the merits of which the writer afterwards became fully 
acquainted. It was put to the test by the judges in a hard- 
baked soil. The pan, or old plough-floor, of this field, had evi- 
dently never been invaded by agricultural tools ; below six 
inches it was as solid as centuries of ploughing and trampling 
can be conceived to have made a tenacious loam, aided by a 



SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING CONNECTED WITH THOROUGH-DRAINING. 137 

tirouglit of several weeks' duration. Mr. Read's pulverizer was 
put into the furrow opened by a plough, and set to work about 
six inches under it. The effect was ^perfectly beautiful,^ to 
use the judges' words. The old floor was split up into frag- 
ments, like broken tiles ; the soil was separated and pulverized, 
not heaved up in great masses, and let fall again to its original 
berth — the common defect of the ponderous subsoil-ploughs ; the 
depth was maintained invariably uniform, and a holder for the 
implement would be nearly unnecessary but for the circumstance 
of its coming out at the end of a furrow, and of setting in again. 
The uniformity of depth and regularity of motion are owing to 
the construction of the implement, which is as simple as it is 
novel. A straight beam, furnished with the usual pair of 
handles, is carried on four wheels, the leading pair being placed 
near the bridle, and the following pair near the after end of 
the beam. The stirrer or miner is let down through a mortise 
in the beam, immediately behind the after pair of wheels, and 
fixed to cut at any required depth. By this arrangement, the 
entire weight is carried on the wheels, which also preserve the 
action of the stirrer at all times parallel with the bottoms of the 
furrows on which they travel. This instrument required con- 
siderably less force of draught than any which had come under 
the observation of the judges. A mole-share has been applied to 
this implement, and used in Kent with excellent effect in making 
mole drains with a force of four horses ; and by reason of its 
manageableness and accurate working, the implement has been 
found, by farmers in the same county, to facilitate drainage in 
clay soils, in a remarkable manner, if used with due caution. 
They recommend that newly-drained clays be not broken up, in 
the first instance, to a depth beneath the furrow greater than six 
inches ; that the share be set another season two or three inches 
lower, and so on gradually deepening the pulverized mass, rather 
than disrupting the whole at once." 

Since this report was made, this implement has been much 
more extensively brought into use, and with universal approba- 
tion. It is a much less costly instrument than the subsoil- 
ploughs before described. It seems to me quite worth consid- 
ering how far the application of such wheels to a common 
plough would be practicable and desirable. It would seem 
likely to facilitate very much the even holding of the plough, to 
12* 



138 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

diminish its friction in some measure, and to make it easier to 
preserve an equality of depth in ploughing, than by the common 
instrument. There are parties who wiU perfectly understand 
this, and who, if they deserve attention, will avail themselves of 
these suggestions. 



cm. — IRRIGATION. 

1. Theory of Irrigation. — Irrigation, or watering land 
under growing crops, can scarcely be called a very frequent 
operation in English agriculture ; yet I cannot imagine the 
process to be more beautifully or successfully carried out than in 
some examples which have here come under my notice. These 
I shall describe as well as I can. 

When a sterile and unproductive waste is converted into a 
fruitful field, and land which yielded nothing is made to produce 
the most abundant crops, — when the simple element of water, 
which Heaven, in its unlimited goodness, pours out in most situ- 
ations in such abundant profusion, becomes the kindling instru- 
ment of life and energy to the vegetable world, to be used or 
applied by human art at its pleasure, — a reflecting mind contem- 
plates the beneficent results with an elevated and grateful admi- 
ration. In such cases, one sees the highest encouragement to 
further efforts ; the limits of progress and improvement the im- 
agination has not yet descried ; and past victories prefigure future 
triumphs in this humble but most useful field of exertion. 

That water is an important and indispensable element in vege- 
tation, every one knows. That its elements constitute a portion 
of every plant, is well established. But in what particular way 
it operates to produce its effects, is not so well determined, Its 
operation, say some persons, is purely mechanical. It reduces 
the matters in the soil, the manures, and the mould, into a con- 
dition to supply the plants with the food which they require ; 
yet, if the water becomes stagnant in the soil, its effects are per- 
nicious. It serves, in the opinion of one eminent person, to 
wash the roots of the plants, relieving them from that excremen- 
titions matter which exudes from their roots, and which, if suf- 
fered to remain, injures their health, and impedes their growth. 



IRRIGATION. 139 

This may be so, but it is obviously purely conjectural. It opens 
a passage for the access of the air to the roots of the plants. 
This must be beneficial. It increases the temperature of the 
soil ; but this must depend upon the relative condition between 
the soil and the water applied, which must vary under different 
circumstances. In the opinion of Sir Humphry Davy, " In the 
artificial watering of meadows, the beneficial effects depend 
upon many different causes, some chemical, some mechanical." 
This is certainly a safe opinion ; but its chemical effects are not 
so easily determined. Let us hear the great authority. 

" The atmosphere and the soil offer the same kind of nourish- 
ment to the leaves and roots. The former contains a compara- 
tively inexhaustible supply of carbonic acid and ammonia ; the 
latter, by means of its humus, generates constantly fresh carbonic 
acid, whilst, during the winter, rain and snow introduce into the 
soil a quantity of ammonia sufficient for the development of the 
leaves and blossoms." 

'• The complete, or, it may be said, the absolute insolubilitv- 
in cold water, of vegetable matter in progress of decay, (humus,) 
appears, on closer consideration, to be a most wise arrangement 
of nature. For if humus possessed even a smaller degree of 
solubility than that ascribed to the substance called humic acid, 
it must be dissolved by rain water. Thus the yearly irrigation 
of meadows, which lasts for several weeks, would remove a 
great part of it from the ground, and a heavy and continued 
rain would impoverish a soil. But it is soluble only when com- 
bined with oxygen ; it can be taken up by water, therefore, 
only as carbonic acid. 

" When kept in a dry place, humus may be preserved for cen- 
turies ; but when moistened with water, it converts the surround- 
ing oxygen into carbonic acid. As soon as the action of the 
air ceases, — that is, as soon as it is deprived of oxygen, — the 
humus suffers no further change. Its decay proceeds only when 
plants grow in the soil containing it ; for they absorb by their 
roots the carbonic acid as it is formed."* 

" It is because the water of rivers and streams contains oxygen 
in solution, that it effects the most complete and rapid putrefac- 
tion of the excrements contained in the soil, which it penetrates, 

* Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry, p. 127. 



140 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and in which it is continually renewed. If it was the water 
alone, which produced this effect, marshy meadows should be 
most fertile. Hence it is not sufficient, in irrigating meadows, to 
convert them into marshes, by covering, for several months, their 
surface with water, which is not renewed ; for the advantage of 
irrigation consists principally in supplying oxygen to the roots 
of plants. The quantity of water necessary for this purpose is 
very small, so that it is sufficient to cover the meadow with a 
very thin layer, if this be frequently renewed."* 

These are the opinions entertained by different eminent in- 
dividuals on the subject of irrigation. They cannot be said to 
contradict each other ; but whether or not they reach the whole 
of the case, must be left to the judgment of my reader. The 
beneficial and productive influences of this process in an agricul- 
tural view are perfectly established. Any person may perceive it 
at the breaking up of the spring, when the snow water is turned 
into a restricted channel down a bank, that there the verdure 
and the growth of the grass will sometimes exhibit a month's 
advance over other parts of the field. Every one perceives 
its effects, when a drought is followed by a copious rain, and the 
whole aspect of the fields is immediately changed. Whatever 
may be the theory, which we deem most reasonable, in respect 
to the operation of water upon vegetation, it is enough for all 
practical purposes to know the fact ; and the knowledge of this 
fact, and the practice founded upon it, are almost coincident with 
the art of cultivation. The amounts of the annual and fertil- 
izing inundations of the Nile, and the plans for \vatering the 
fields after the dry season has commenced, must be well known 
to my readers. The productive influences of the overflowing 
of several of our great rivers upon their bottom and alluvial 
lands, are perfectly understood by the agricultural community. 
These, however, are usually charged with an enriching deposit, 
which is often made in considerable quantities, and the effects 
of which are always remarkable. 

2. General Principles and Directions for Irrigation. — 

Some points respecting irrigation may be considered as well 
established, to which it is proper that I should refer. It is set- 

* Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry, p. 168. 



IRRIGATION. 141 

tied that simple water, without any admixture, is in itself a great 
enricher of the soil, or perhaps, more properly, a great promoter 
of vegetation. If the water of irrigation is charged with en- 
riching matters in a state of solution, its beneficial effects are of 
course increased. Waters charged with mineral substances, 
such as water strongly impregnated with iron from peat bogs, or 
water from copper mines, is pernicious to vegetation, as any one 
may see, who will visit the outlets of the copper mines of Corn- 
Avall. It is established, likewise, that water in irrigation, in order 
to produce its best effects, must not be suffered to stagnate upon 
the land, but must pass in a steady progress over it ; and that 
this progress should be comparatively gentle, and not sudden and 
rapid. It is equally well established, that lands which it is pro- 
posed to irrigate, should be thoroughly drained, so that the water 
poured upon the land should not be suffered to stand in the land, 
nor upon it. The effect of stagnant water upon the surface, or 
the complete saturation of the soil, is to change the nature of 
the herbage, and to produce those grasses, which are coarse or 
innutritious, in place of the finer, sweeter, and more healthful. 
Yet it is not the mere transition of the water over the surface 
that is to be sought. It is desirable to have it soak into the 
ground, but not to remain there. Its speedy transition over the 
surface is to be effected by the inclination of the land from 
where it is received to the trench, furrow, or ditch, by which it 
is to be carried off. Its passing into the ground, and- finding a 
speedy passage off, is to be effected by a system of thorough 
draining and subsoiling ; for if the subsoil is impervious, the 
irrigated field becomes converted into a marsh. One of the 
most eminent farmers in Scotland, whose hospitality I Iiad the 
pleasure of enjoying, but whose death since that time is deeply 
to be lamented, — Mr. Oliver, of Lochend, near Edinburgh, — 
who had a large extent of meadow, irrigated by the sewerage water 
from the city, found that, after his fields were thorough drained, 
the benefit of the irrigation was greatly increased ; for by the 
descent of the sewerage water into the soil, as well as over it, 
the enriching portions of the manure in a state of solution were 
carried to the roots of the plants. In the irrigated meadows of 
the Duke of Portland, — for its extent one of the most beautiful 
and finished agricultural improvements which can be found, and 
which I shall presently fully describe, — he showed me, that por- 



142 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

tions of his irrigated lands, which had even been drained, con- 
tinued to affect his sheep with the rot ; and this evil was not 
remedied until the draining was carried to the depth of eight 
feet or more. Before that, without doubt, the stagnant water at 
the bottom prevented the water of irrigation from passing off, 
and may be said to have poisoned the whole ground. 

In irrigation skilfully managed, the increase of product is 
often very great — twofold, fourfold, in many cases even five- 
fold. Even sands, which were barren, have, by irrigation, been 
made productive. Plants, in such cases, having once found a 
footing, by the spread and decay of their own roots, have at 
length formed a soil, and created around themselves the elements 
of fertility. The effect of pure water, I have already said, is 
considerable ; but when this water brings with it the refuse of 
the streets and habitations of a town, in a state of solution, the 
effects, as we shall presently see, are most remarkable. I have 
seen it stated, that water issuing from a limestone soil, and 
strongly impregnated with lime in the form of a sulphate or 
other combination, has been employed with great success in 
irrigation. Such instances have not come under my observa- 
tion ; but I cannot doubt the effect, where the soil was of a 
nature to require that element. In respect to manures, or anj'' 
of the constituents of plants, it is evident they can be taken up 
only in a state of the finest solution. Here homoeopathy tri- 
umphs, and no human sense is acute enough to discern, no 
human scales are fine enough to measure, those infinitesimal 
atoms out of which the rough substance of the gnarled oak is 
formed. 

It would be idle, in a work of this nature, to attempt to lay 
down any thing more than the general principles of irrigation. 
In the accomplishment of any particular work, all the localities 
are to be considered, and the effecting it upon any large scale 
would require considerable engineering skill. 

Irrigation of land and inundation are not the same. The in- 
undation of land resembles what I have already described under 
the process of warping, where, the land being enclosed by em- 
bankments, the water is admitted to flood the land, and is held 
fast until its floating riches are deposited. This can seldom be 
done without disadvantage upon a growing crop, unless when in 
its earliest stages of grov/th. Irrigation is the gradual filtering 



IRRIGATION. 143 

and spreading the water over the soil, and, where not too rapidly 
applied, may be done with safety at any })eriod of the crop. 
This, however, can only apply to pure water. The application 
of turbid water, where a consideral^le amount of mud and earthy 
matters is held in suspension, or the application of sewerage 
water to a growing crop, would be liable to the same objections 
as inundation. I am referring, as must be obvious, to fields in 
grass, to which irrigation is applied ; and not to fields under 
arable culture, to which it may be, but to which I have never seen 
it applied. What are called catch-meadows, is a form of irriga- 
tion upon side hills, where the water, after passing over a certain 
portion of the land, is canght in a trench, and again used for the 
irrigation of other portions of land. In a plan of irrigation, the 
first thing to be considered is the command of an adequate sup- 
ply of water, and this, of course, at a level above the land to be 
irrigated. This may be obtained from a brook, Avhose course 
may be turned, or a portion of whose waters may be diverted 
for that purpose ; or, as it is here sometimes obtained, by the col- 
lection of the water of springs bursting out upon the high lands 
into a common receptacle or reservoir, which may be tapped 
for the purpose of letting out the water, as it may be required. 
I recollect at Canterbury, in New Hampshire, at the establish- 
ment of the United Brethren, or Shaking (Quakers, — certainly 
among the best farmers in the world, — that these industrious 
people, for the sake of. establishing a mill power, much needed 
among them, had, by an embankment or dam between two high 
clay hills, formed a large basin or reservoir, which the melting of 
the snows in the spring, the rains, and some springs on the sides 
of these hills, would completely fill with water, furnishing a 
supply for the season ; and which, passing into successive basins 
as it descended the hill, was used five times for mill purposes ; 
such as a flouring mill, a threshing mill, a mill for sawing wood, 
a mill for grinding bark, and a mill for the dressing of leather. 
I could not help admiring the ingenuity of these people in 
creating a mill power where none existed before ; and it is per- 
fectly plain that, by such an arrangement, they might have exe- 
cuted an extensive system of irrigation, had it been thought 
proper so to apply the water. In some situations, where fuel 
and labor are not expensive, steam power might be employed 
with advantage to force water, and to form a reservoir at the 



144 EUHOPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

height necessary for irrigatmg the land below. On a farm in 
Dedham, Massachusetts, situated upon an acclivity, at the foot 
of which ran a small brook, I saw that the farmer had formed a 
reservoir above his house and barn. Into this reservoir, through 
leaden pipes of a small bore, the water of the brook was forced 
up, by means of an hydraulic ram and forcing pump, itself 
operated by the running brook ; and a supply of water was 
always maintained in the reservoir amply sufficient for the 
domestic purposes of the family, and the supply of the cattle in 
the yard. The water was forced a considerable distance, and 
the expense of the machinery was very trifling. The cost and 
labor of keeping it in operation were nothing, excepting that of 
opening and shutting the gate. The expense of the whole 
apparatus, excepting the reservoir, did not exceed five pounds, 
or twenty-five dollars. The farm would, in England, be con- 
sidered a very small one, not exceeding one hundred acres ; but 
it shows, just as much as a larger one, to what advantage the 
most simple contrivances may be applied. This water, thus 
raised, might have been used for the purposes of irrigation. 

Where the supply of water is sufficient, it is carried along on 
the upper margin of the land to be drained in a trench or furrow ; 
and, when it is required to throw the water over the land, the 
end of this trench or furrow is to be stopped, either by a gate or 
a damming up for the occasion, so that the water entering it 
may flow gently and evenly over its sides. It is plain that the 
water trench or furrow should be carried nearly upon a level ; 
first, that the flowing of the water over the sides of the furrow 
or gutter may be equal and uniform ; and, next, because any 
variation from a level would force the water to a particular point, 
either to prevent its equal diff'usion over the field, or to occasion, 
perhaps, a rupture of the side of the trench, and an injury to the 
field itself The variation from a level, recommended by some 
persons with a view to giving the water an easy flow in the 
trench or gutter, is only one inch fall in every ten feet. 

Besides the formation of the trench or furrow, the surface to 
be irrigated requires to be made even, the knolls reduced, the 
hollow places filled, and the holes, occasioned by vermin of any 
kind, stopped, that the water may flow evenly over the whole. 
The degree of inclination, desirable in a field to be irrigated, is 
stated to be about ten feet in ninety ; but although this n)ay be 



IRRIGATION. 145 

found desirable, it is obvious that it cannot be under the control 
of the farmer, to any considerable extent, but at a very great 
expense. We must take the land as we find it ; for few things 
are more costly than attempts materially, or to any great extent, 
to alter its shape. It would be prejudicial to undertake to irri- 
gate our lands without the means of getting rid of the water, 
and without having a gradual, though not a rapid, transmission 
of the water over the surface ; but in cases where the inclination 
IS too great, the supply must be more gradually rendered. 

The frequency with which water may be applied to meadoAVs, 
and the length of time which it may be suffered to remain on 
them, are points to be considered. At Welbeck, at the Duke of 
Portland's, after the prepared land was sown with grass seeds, 
the water was brought upon them as soon as it was thought they 
would bear it ; i. e., after they had become sufficiently rooted, and 
the ground consolidated around them. This would vary, accord- 
ing to the season, from one month to six. The great danger to 
be apprehended upon newly-sown lands is the washing away the 
dirt from their roots. The duke himself remarks that, " short 
of that, they cannot be watered too soon, or too long at a time, 
unless the land has very recently been drained, in which case it 
would not be well to increase the natural strength of the springs 
until the land had forgotten its wet propensities. On really dry 
land there are only two limits to the length of irrigation, viz., 
the want of water, and the want of consistency in the soil, so 
that it shall not be washed away from the roots of the grass." 

After the grass had become sufficiently strong, the water was 
kept going over it for about four days, and then taken off. The 
grass was mown as soon as it was ready for the scythe, and 
the water again turned over. The same course was pursued 
upon the old grass land. About once a month, the water is 
turned on for three or four days at a time, according to the sup- 
ply, and this throughout the year. When the water is abundant, 
it is applied oftener than once a month ; but how long it should 
be kept on, is somewhat matter of judgment in reference to the 
weather and the state of the ground. The manager of the 
works chooses to keep it on until he sees its effects upon 
the grass. 

Lord Hatherton, on his meadows at Teddesley Park, informs 
me, that they commence irrigation about the 1st of November, 

VOL. II. 13 



146 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and the water remains three or four days on the land. If the 
supply is sufficient, it should be renewed once a fortnight. In a 
dry season, it is advisable to apply it immediately after cutting 
the grass ; but it must not then be allowed to remain many hours 
in the same place, especially if the sun is powerful. 

Mr. Oliver, at Lochend, where the sewerage water of the city 
was used, deemed it' unsafe to apply the irrigation immediately 
after the cutting of the grass, but considered it altogether advi- 
sable to wait until the grass had acquired some growth. The 
sewerage water, in this case, was of great strength, and a different 
rule was applicable from a case where the water of irrigation 
was pure. 

Mr. Roals, who farms some cold land one thousand feet above 
the level of the sea, in Somersetshire, and who has improved a 
considerable tract by irrigation, says, that " the water should 
never be suffered to remain in one place over the grass more than 
two or three days at a time without being changed ; nor be 
turned upon the land in order to remain there during frost ; but 
should the frost set in while the water is on, by no means alter 
it until the frost is gone ; for if the surface is exposed, and 
the frost continues, it will most likely lift the land and kill 
the grass." * 

These observations will have peculiar value in New England, 
where the frosts are severe, and where grass lands, upon which 
water stands in the winter, or lands upon which grain has been 
sown in the autumn, if particularly wet, are sure to suffer most 
severely from freezing. 

I have already spoken of the quality of the water used for 
irrigation. At Lord Hatherton's, it is the water gathered from 
the different drains, in different parts of the farm, whose position 
was such that their supplies could be turned to this purpose. 
At the Duke of Portland's, a small river, called the Maun, run- 
ning through the neighboring town of Mansfield, supplies the 
water of irrigation. After strong rains, when the washings of 
the streets and sewers of this town are poured into the river, its 
waters become quite turbid, and have a superior efficacy. The 
sediment deposited by a single watering, in such cases, is very 



* Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi. p. 520. 



IRRIGATION. 147 

observable. I shall presently speak more at large of the applica- 
tion of sewerage water. 

" In the management of the crops of grass upon irrigated 
meadows," says one whose practical knowledge of the subject 
allows him to speak with authority, "experience has shown that 
to let the grass grow to be too old, viz., until the seed of it is in 
a forward state, is productive of very great injury to the land. 
When the grass has been cut for hay in this state, and brown at 
bottom, the land does not recover for a great length of time. It 
is also found very desirable, after beginning any meadow, or por- 
tion of a meadow, which receives the water from one carrier, 
and at one time, that the consimiption of it in a green state 
should be carried on as quickly as possible, so that in dry 
weather the water may not be kept off of it too long ; for in that 
case it requires so much water before the land is saturated, and 
will allow the water to flow evenly over it, that much loss of 
time occurs in the next crop of grass." 

I have thus touched upon the principal points connected with 
this great agricultural improvement, though there are some others 
to which I shall recur before I quit the subject ; and I now pro- 
ceed to speak of some principal experiments, which have come 
particularly under my observation. 

3. Welbeck, Nottinghamshire. — The most extensive and 
most finished work of irrigation, or, as they are here called, of 
v)ater-meadows, and to which I have repeatedly referred, is at Wel- 
beck, in Nottinghamshire, at the residence of His Grace the Duke 
of Portland.* The water-meadows at Welbeck at first embraced 



* The Duke of Richmond, for whose constant kindness I should find it difficult 
to express my sense of obligation, did me the honor of a letter of introduction to 
tlie Duke of Portland, which I duly forwarded ; and he, learning I was in his 
vicinity, was kind enough to send a messenger twenty miles to meet me, that I 
should appoint a time for my visit, when he would be at home, that he might him- 
self, to use his own expression, "have the pleasure of personally showing me his 
improvements." The rules which I have prescribed to myself, and wJiich I hold 
inflexible, do not allow me to speak further of my most instructive and delightful 
visit to that noble residence ; yet it seems but just that I should, as I wish to do 
with tlie most delicate respect, allude to such examples as only illustrative of the 
uniibrm and universal treatment with which I have been honored during my pro- 
tracted residence in this country, by the higher classes, both titled and untitled. 
These persons constitute a body, of whom I may say witli truth, and I hope with- 



148 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

more than three hundred acres ; but they have since been consid- 
erably extended, and, when I was there, the improvement was 
still going on. 

The land, before the improvement was commenced, was in 
pai't a thin, gravelly, and barren soil, and in part a peat bog, or 
swamp, and full of rushes and aquatic plants. The River Maun, 
which we should scarcely deem entitled to much more than the 
name of a brook, after sweeping through the town of Mansfield, 
a town of a population of a few thousand, made its way through 
the lower portion of these grounds. At what may be called its 
upper end, a portion of its water was diverted from its natural 
course, and, by an artificial channel, led along the margin of 
the meadows, which were to be irrigated, varying, in its passage, 
as the shape of the land varied ; and this for a distance of five 
miles and a half, until, from the nature of the land, the artificial 
channel was brought into contact with the old channel ; and here, 
a ne\^ dam being formed, the artificial channel crosses the bed 
of the river, and goes down on the other side, a distance of two 
miles farther. 

At successive places, in the course of the artificial channel, 
sluice-ways are opened on the side, for the purpose of letting out 
the water ; and these sluice-ways, besides being furnished with 
gates and valves, all of a perfect description, are most substan- 
tially laid with stone, wherever the inclination was more than one 
inch in five yards, so that no injury might be done to the mead- 
ows by too rapid a current of water. From these sluice-ways 
lateral gutters extend at right angles, into which the water is 
received, and thus diffused over the whole grounds. I subjoin a 
partial sketch of the general plan of the improvement, (p. 149,) 
which will render my description much more intelligible, and 
likewise an elevation of one of the shuttles, or, as we should 
call it, one of the gates, for the regulation of the passage of the 
water, (p. 150,) the construction of which appeared to me some- 
what novel and ingenious, and so may be to some of my readers, 

out offence, that, taken together, a class of men more polished and courteous, 
better educated, more enlightened, or more moral, has adorned no country and no 
period. The kindness which I have experienced has not, however, been limited 
to any class; and my numerous friends, in a condition of life more humble, may 
be sure tliat their strong; claims upon my grateful respect are most cordially 
acknowledged, and can never be forgotten. 



IRRIGATION. 



149 




13* 



150 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



though in its nature altogether simple, and probably familiar 
enough to every practical mechanic. The sketch is copied from 
the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. i. p. 359. 




/ 



But the conveyance of the water, and the formation of this 
artificial channel or canal, for so great a length, were only a part 
of this magnificent work. In order to render the irrigation of 
these lands easy, their whole surface was to be reduced to an 
equal flatness or inclination ; consequently, knolls of even six 
and seven feet high were to be cut down, low places and holes 
filled up, and all the inequalities of the land corrected ; and this 
was mainly done by the spade and wheelbarrow. The great 
point aimed at was, to render the slopes easy and equable ; and, 
in order that, in cases where considerable elevations were lev- 
elled, a perfectly dead earth might not be left exposed, the top 
soil was first taken off, and then returned upon the places which 
had been dug down. This process had not been effectual to 
render these places as fertile as those parts which had not been 
subjected to so severe an operation ; but time, under the con- 
tinual influences of a rich vegetation, will probably effect that. 
The improvements, which were in progress when I visited the 
place, showed what an undertaking had been accomplished, and 



IRRIGATION. 151 

what an immense amount of labor expended. It was not merely 
that these grounds were to have their faces washed and their 
hair combed, but the levelling of these various inequalities 
required an extraordinary skill and an indefatigable and heroic 
perseverance. But the beauty of the whole work, as it presented 
itself to the eye, so nicely formed, and so bright and rich in its 
verdure and productiveness, was delightful ; and this perfect and 
magnificent triumph of art and industry over adverse circum- 
stances, most strikingly exemplified by a comparison with the 
adjoining land, which remained in its original inferior state, and 
had not been brought under the resuscitating and beautifying 
hand of improvement, compelled the highest admiration. 

But the work which appeared was by no means the whole 
that had been done. The land had been all thoroughly drained, 
and, in soVne cases, to the depth of five feet. In some cases, the 
work had required to be twice done, because, when the land 
became saturated with the water of irrigation, new force was 
given to the natural springs, which then were rendered too 
strong for the outlets provided. The duke was kind enough to 
point out to me how indispensable it was to get rid of the bot- 
tom water in order to bring the lands into a sound state ; and in 
one case, where the ground had been drained at the depth of five 
feet with tile-drains, the grovnid could not be laid dry until a 
spring at the side of the land was completely cut off, and a 
channel formed, so that the water might be conveyed quickly 
away. In one case, it was found necessary to sink a drain to 
the depth of twelve feet, in order to cut off a copious spring, 
which pressed upon the land. The system of thorough-drain- 
ing, which I have already very fully discussed, may be sufficient 
to convey away all the rain water which follows, but not the 
water flowing from powerful springs in side hills, whose waters 
often press upon lower grounds in the neighborhood, and com- 
pletely saturate them. 

New evidence was given, in the progress of the work, that 
lands subjected to the process of irrigation, always suffer if there 
is too great flatness, and that it is of the highest importance to 
the full benefit of the operation, that, although a too rapid trans- 
mission of the water of irrigation is to be avoided, yet its progress 
should not be interrupted or delayed. 

Besides the amount of labor expended in draining the lands. 



152 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

levelling inequalities, filling up hollows and holes, forming the 
channels, sluices, and dams, it will be considered that a great 
deal was required in grubbing the land, getting rid of the gorse. 
and heather, and rubbish, that covered considerable portions of it 
before the improvement was undertaken ; and, previous to the 
levelling, the ground was ploughed, and a crop of turnips grown 
upon it, which were fed off by sheep. This was followed by a 
crop of barley, and then a second crop of turnips. The improve- 
ments having been completed, and the land levelled, these first 
crops, which were contemporaneous with the process of improve- 
ment, having been taken, the lands were regularly laid down to 
grass, and so have remained, requiring now no further manure, 
and yielding a most abundant product. 

It has been found that the supply of water has been inade- 
quate to the wants of the land in seasons of drought ; and, to 
remedy this, the proprietor has formed, above the town of Mans- 
field, a reservoir of seventy acres, which is designed to do double 
duty, being first used to drive some mills in the town, and after- 
wards for the purposes of irrigation. 

The productiveness of these meadows has much exceeded the 
expectations formed; and I shall quote from Mr. Denison's in- 
teresting account of them in the Journal of the Agricultural 
Society, of which I have already to some extent availed myself. 

"These meadows are farmed in the following manner. Early 
in January, Southdown ewes, with Iambs bred early for this 
purpose, are turned on the meadows. In this early season, they 
are assisted with cabbages ; but the ewes and lambs always do 
well on the meadows; and they appear to be particularly healthy 
for the lambs, very few dying suddenly, as v/ill often be the 
case on fresh seeds, [i. e., land newly laid down to grass. — 
H. C] Ewes are put on with their lambs as they are born, and 
gain strength, and in this way, from January to the end of March, 
and in some parts till much later in the spring, even till late in 
May, they are devoted to ewes and lambs, feeding the Iambs 
fat, which are sold, at that early season, at from 24s. to 30 s. 
each. The land is then shut, some at the beginning of April, 
other portions later in rotation. The most forward meadows 
will be ready for cutting green by about the middle of IMay, and 
will yield from sixteen to twenty good cart-loads of green fodder 
per acre, which is carried to cattle in yards. In about six weeks, 



IRRIGATION. 153 

a second crop is ready, which, with the allowance of time neces- 
sary to clear the first crop from the ground, and to apply the 
water, will carry this second catting to the middle of July. After 
this, an eddish [called in the United States after-feed or fall- 
feed. — H. C.J will be left to be eaten by sheep and cattle in the 
autumn and early winter. The meadows which are first cut 
will frequently allow of a third cutting of green food ; but the 
eddish will, of course, in that case be of less value. Speaking, 
therefore, of the whole range of meadows, to say that, besides 
the sheep-feed in the spring, they will afford two green cuttings 
and an eddish, is to be rather under than above the mark. 
Some portions are allowed to stand for hay, and are mown, after 
having been stocked late, early in July, yielding two tons to the 
acre, and leaving, as in the other case, an eddish for the early 
winter."* 

But it must be remembered, that this is not the whole of the 
profit gathered from these meadows. They require no manure 
to keep them in condition, beyond the water which is supplied 
to them, if that is to be called manure. But every acre of this 
irrigated land, in its produce consumed by cattle on the farm, 
supplies manure for five acres of other land ; and this, on every 
account, must be considered an invaluable advantage. 

The expense of these improvements has been very great ; and 
the more especially, as every part of the work has been executed 
in the most substantial and beautiful manner. It seemed to me 
impossible to find a more finished work. The scale of expense 
here could form no rule for any such work in the United States, 
even should one in a much more humble form be in any case 
attempted. As to the result here, although, wherever these im- 
provements are spoken of, I have heard the expense objected to. 
it was enough for me to know that the noble proprietor expressed 
himself entirely satisfied.! -'^^ the current value of land in this 

* The Duke of Portland, speaking of the quality of the produce of these 
meadows, says, " There is reason to believe that water-meadow hay is not good 
for horses working on wind ; but for all other purposes it is quite good. On ac- 
count of its succulency, tl)e grass is difficult to be made into hay, and requires 
much time. Horses of every description, and cattle, thrive greatly on the 
meadows themselves ; and I should say that, unless they give the rot to sheep, 
they are the most wholesome pasture for them, as well as for horses and cattle ; 
but my meadows are all perfectly dry." 

t " The value of the land has been raised from the annual sum of £80 to thai 



154 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

country, and of land which, from its own resources, without 
further expense than that of ordinary attention, is capable of 
keeping up its fertility, and, at the same time, to such an extraor- 
dinary extent administers to the fertility of other lands, and, 
to a degree, may be said almost to defy the seasons, it would 
seem that such an improvement would almost justify any ex- 
pense incurred in effecting it. In any event, I could not help 
reflecting, with the highest delight, upon so useful, instructive, 
and beautiful an application of wealth ; upon the important agri- 
cultural lessons which it explained and illustrated, upon the 
powerful stimulus to improvement, which such an example at 
once supplies and applies to all who witness it ; and upon so 
striking a monument, which the proprietor has thus erected in 
honor of himself, adapted, not to astound, but to instruct ; not to 
provoke envy, but to awaken gratitude ; to carry down his mem- 
ory to posterity in letters of universal respect, and more eloquent 
in his honor than the loftiest Corinthian granite column, or even 
the proudest regal mausoleum of ancient Egypt. But putting 
the actual pecuniary profit out of the question, the sum total of 
the expense of all these improvements, the actual creation of all 
these three hundred acres of most productive lands, with all its 
collateral and reduplicating advantages, does not half equal the 
expense of many a contested election, as formerly conducted, 
squandered in drunkenness, profligacy, and riot. 

4. Teddesley, Staffordshire. — The next great improve- 
ment in irrigation, which I had the pleasure of witnessing, was 
at the highly and most judiciously improved estate of Lord Hath- 
erton, at Teddesley Park, in Stafl'ordshire.* 

Here he has undertaken, under the superintendence of a most 
competent manager and steward, to drain completely between 
five and six hundred acres of land, and has managed to convert 



of £3660, at a cost (from their commencement, in 1816, to their completion in 
1837) of £40,000. The profit upon each acre, after defraying all expenses, is 
computed at nearly £12 a year, without taking into consideration the great benefit 
they are to the arable land adjoining them." — Coiringham^s Report of JVot- 
tinfchamshire. 

* To this gentleman's constant kindness, and, I may be allowed to add, intimate 
personal friendship, I am indebted for many of the advantages, and very much of 
the pleasure, which have attended my visit to England. 



IRRIGATION. 155 

the water of drainage into a valuable mill power ; and then leads 
it off for the purpose of irrigating about eighty-nine acres of 
land, taking in its way much of the drainage of the barn-yard, 
(where a stock of about two hundred head of cattle are con- 
stantly soiled,) which is collected in a large reservoir for this pur- 
pose, and sometimes carried out in a cart for the purpose of irriga- 
tion, and sometimes pumped upon a mixed heap of materials 
composted for manure, that it may enrich and decompose them. 
The water, in order to form the mill power, is first collected into 
a small reservoir, half a mile distant from the farm buildings, and 
then conveyed in covered drains to the mill house. In order to 
bring the water out at a proper level, it was necessary to sink a 
channel through a hard sandstone for a distance of about five 
hundred yards. " The stream of water was not sufficiently 
powerful to turn an undershot wheel ; and to enable it to act 
with force, it was necessary to bring it out to the upper part of 
a wheel of thirty feet in diameter. This wheel has been placed 
in the rock thirty-five feet deep, and the head-way has been 
carried from the bottom through the rock, which comes out in a 
valley below, at the distance above mentioned of five hundred 
yards." 

This mill power is applied to drive a threshing machine ; to 
the cutting of hay and straw ; to the crushing of oats and barley ; 
to the grinding of malt, and to the turning of a circular saw ; and 
it is obviously capable of further application. This is an im- 
mense advantage. The water, having performed this duty, is 
then conducted into the fields which are to be irrigated, where, 
by various channels, it is made to overflow and enrich these ex- 
tensive grounds. The whole number of acres embraced in the 
farm is about thirteen hundred, only a portion of which is sub- 
jected to drainage ; the number actually irrigated is eighty-nine. 
This land was originally of little comparative value, but is now 
highly productive. No manure is ever applied to these lands 
other than what is carried by the water in its mixture with the 
liquids from the barn-yard. The year before the last, notwith- 
standing the severe drought of the summer, they produced at 
least two tons of hay per acre. They are fed in the spring with 
sheep, and with cattle and sheep after being mowed. It would 
not be easy to estimate too highly the value of lands of such 



156 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

cheap and permanent productiveness, after they are once formed, 
and especially in reference to the means which they furnish of 
enriching other and less favored portions of the farm. The im- 
provements on this farm are of a most substantial and complete 
character. The accomplishment of the object in view, in the 
most useful, thorough, and least expensive mode, is the govern- 
ing principle pervading the whole establishment. Certainly one 
more judicious could not be adopted ; and in this respect they 
present an example capable of being followed by farmers of lim- 
ited means, whose improvements must be restricted to such only 
as will pay. The water obtained by drainage, in this case, hap- 
pens to be favorable for irrigation. The whole expense of un- 
der-draining the land, of erecting water-wheel and machinery, 
and of irrigation, is estimated at £2733 2s. 2d., and the in- 
creased annual value of the estate is rated at £1013 2 s. 4 d. This 
results from draining 467 acres, and employing the drain water 
for mill purposes, and the irrigation of 89 acres of land ; " afford- 
ing a clear annual interest on the outlay of full 37 per cent." 

5. AuDLEY End, Essex. — The next improvement by irriga- 
tion I had the pleasure of inspecting was at Audley End, near 
Saffron Walden, the elegant residence of Lord Braybrooke. The 
improvements here, in this way, are upon a comparatively small 
scale, but extremely productive. They are on the lowlands, in 
the vicinity of a small stream or river. I cannot do so well as 
give an account of them in his lordship's own words. 

" The water-meadows at Audley End were formed in 1841, 
from old pastures, without disturbing the surface except for the 
purpose of adjusting the levels, and cutting the ditches ; but in 
consequence of the inequality of the ground, many hollow places 
were filled up with fresh moulds ; and the product was not much 
increased the first year of irrigation. 

" Although it was not possible to ascertain the exact amomit 
of the crops for the succeeding three years, two of the three 
crops having been consumed in a green state on the ground, yet 
occasionally single rods taken indiscriminately from the first 
growth of grass have been weighed, in order to obtain a tol- 
erable estimate of the general produce, and they afibrd the 
foUowinsc result : — 



IRRIGATION. 



157 



First Time of Cutting. 


Weight of Grass 
per Rod. 


Weight of Hay 
per Rod. 


Weight of Grass 
per Acre. 


Weight of Hay 
per Acre. 




lbs. 


lbs. 


Tons. CwU 


Tons. CwL 


May 1, 1843, 


143 


39 


10 4 


2 15 


May 30, " 


201 


51 


14 7 


3 12 


April 22, 1844, 


152 


38 


10 17 


2 14 


May 15, " 


211 


62 


15 1 


4 8 


May 23, 1845, 


170 


44 


12 2 


3 2 


June 3, '* 


218 


56 


15 11 


4 



"III the end of July and beginning of August, 1844, a second 
cutting was made of the grass growing on the land above referred 
to, and carried to the homestead in a green state for consump- 
tion ; and this crop appeared nearly as heavy as the first. 

" It must be remembered that no deduction has been made for 
any waste of ground arising from the carriers and troughs ; but 
it may be presumed, after allowing for this loss of surface, that 
the average produce yielded the three last years has been about 
thirty-one tons of grass, or eight tons of hay per acre. It appears, 
from the different periods of the year at which the crops arrived 
at maturity, that, even on irrigated meadows, the temperature of 
the atmosphere in the early part of the spring exercises consid- 
erable influence over the growth of the grass, where water is not 
always at command to apply to the meadows. 

" Italian rye grass seems suitable for irrigation, as a patch at 
Audley End measured three feet two inches in height on the 
.30th of April, 1844." * 

6. Somersetshire. — I have already referred to Mr. Roals's 
account of his forming some catch-meadows, or meadows to be 
irrigated on very high lands, by collecting the water from some 
springs high up, and then bringing it down by successive gutters 
or trenches. " The water gutters were made to take the water 
that was drained from the springs above. He set out the water- 
ing gutters by a level, giving them one inch fall in every ten 
feet. They were cut nine inches wide and three deep. If the 
land has a gentle slope, the gutters may be put sixty feet from 
each other ; but if it be very steep, and there is a good flow of 



* Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi. p. 5'-i2. 
VOL. II. 14 



158 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUKE. 

water, they may be put seventy or eighty feet apart. When he 
finds the water sink too fast into the land, he spreads fine earth 
or road scrapings over the surface, in order to fill it up, that the 
water may pass over to the next catch-gutter. He has drained 
and formed into meadows, for irrigation, thirty acres, which yield, 
from a ton to a ton and a half of hay per acre annually." This 
land, which, previous to these improvements, was valued by 
authority at 2 s. per acre rent, would now let for 25 s. This 
demonstrates the extraordinary value of this improvement. 

His remarks subjoined to this account are too valuable to be 
omitted. '' The sides of the mountains, in the north of England 
and Wales, might be converted into catch-meadows, in the same 
way that I have done mine, provided the water is of good quality, 
and the land can be made porous, to let the water filter gently 
down. I have never found turning water over old pasture do 
much good, as the grass that comes up is coarse and thin, and 
the hay, if mown, is not of good quality. If, therefore, old pas- 
ture is intended for meadow, it will answer best to break it up 
first, work it well, and seed it down with those grass seeds which 
are most congenial for water meadows." 

The judgment of this farmer, in respect to the management 
of old pasture, seems at variance with the experience of Lord 
Braybrooke. But I suppose they are speaking of entirely dif- 
ferent qualities of soil. The former is speaking of high moun- 
tain pasture, the latter of alluvial lands, which have been greatly 
enriched. 

I shall conclude this part of my subject with the remarks of 
Philip Pusey, Esq., M. P., which are always deserving of the 
highest attention, and which are as applicable to many parts of 
the United States as to those places to which they immediately 
refer. 

" I have known Mr. Roals's farm for many years. It stands 
alone on the summit of the wild Exmoor range of mountain 
land. If any one asserted, that, for a trifling outlay, he could 
enable heath-covered steeps to rival, in produce and value, the 
old grazing grounds of Northamptonshire, he would be regarded 
as a dreamer. But if any owner of moors will visit Somerset, or 
North Devon, he will ascertain the literal truth of the statement, 
as I did five years ago. All that is required is a streamlet tric- 
kling down the mountain side, or a torrent descending rapidly 



IRRIGATION. 159 

along the bottom of the glen. The profit of under-drainmg old 
arable land appears trifling when compared with the profit of 
thus forming catch-meadows, which, according to Mr. Reals, is 
more than one pound interest for two pounds invested. The 
two pages of this report, which state no more than Mr. Reals 
has himself done, contain a talisman, by which a mantle of 
luxuriant verdure might be spread over the mountain moors of 
Wales and Scotland, of Kerry and Cannemara." 

New England, especially, and many parts of the other states, 
are full of sites and means for such improvements ; and in many 
cases the expense and labor of levelling the land, bringing the 
water into a body, and placing it under control, would be met 
many times over by the profits of such improvements. 

7. Edinburgh. — I come next to speak of a system of irriga- 
tion established in Edinburgh, which I looked at with a good 
deal of interest, where the sewerage water from the drains of the 
city are applied to grass lands in its neighborhood, which by this 
means are rendered most extraordinarily productive. 

The drainage water from a large portion of the city of Edin- 
burgh is collected into covered carriers and drains, and from 
these emptied into a small stream of water, very properly, as one 
may suppose in such case, called the Foul Burn, the term hum 
being the Scottish name for a small stream or brook. Here it 
passes along, in an open brook, among some flat lands, which, by 
proper arrangements, it is made to overflow. I should state that, 
before it reaches the places where it is thus diff'used, it is received 
in tanks, where the more solid parts are deposited. It does not 
require any extraordinary acuteness of smell, on approaching these 
irrigated lands, to become satisfied that the waters, even after 
passing from the cisterns or tanks, are sufficiently charged with 
odoriferous particles held in suspension. Indeed, in visiting 
some parts of the old town in Edinburgh, of Glasgow, and of 
Dundee, it is difficult to persuade one's self that the inhabitants 
of those parts are not absolutely deficient in one particular sense. 
Whether, with the present habits prevailing in those places, this 
deficiency is to be considered an evil or a good, I shall not un- 
dertake to decide. 

This water, thus received, is diff'used over three hundred acres 
of land ; and these lands are rendered productive to a most extra- 



160 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ordinary degree. One of the principal proprietors, who held his 
land, under a long lease, at a rent of £5 per acre, and sub-let this 
irrigated land at £30 per acre, informed me that it was some- 
limes cut seven times in a season. The grass is carried into the 
city, a distance of two and three miles, for the support of the 
cows, which supply the city with milk. Different channels or 
gutters are formed for the admission of the water, so that the 
whole may be flooded. It is applied generally after every cut- 
ting, where the situation admits of it ; but it is found advisable 
not to apply it immediately upon the grass being cut, nor before 
it has obtained some small growth. 

The offensive exhalations from meadows thus treated have 
been the subject of prosecutions at law, as nuisances to health, 
by parties who derived no benefit from the operation, and whose 
sense of smell, therefore, was not, as I have known in some sim- 
ilar cases, benumbed or bribed by any pecuniary advantage. In 
the testimony adduced on these occasions, it has been stated that 
the rent for which some of these meadows are leased in small 
portions to cow-feeders, varies on an average from £20 to £30 
per acre. Some of the richest meadows were let, in 1835, at 
£38 per acre ; and in that season of scarce forage, 1826, 
£57, or $285, per acre, were obtained for the same meadows. 
'• The waste land, called Figget Whins, containing thirty acres, 
and ten acres of poor, sandy soil adjoining them, were formed 
into water meadows, in 1821, at an expense of £1000. The 
pasture of the Figget Whins, containing thirty acres, used to be 
let for £40 per year, and that of the ten acres at £60. Now, 
the same ground, as meadows, lets for £15 or £20 an acre per 
year, and will probably let for more, as the land becomes more 
and more enriched ; " that is, land which, before the irrigation, 
let for about 500 dollars per year, now, under this improvement, 
yields an annual rent of from 3000 to 4000 dollars. The irriga- 
tion is continued at different times, from the 1st of April to the 
middle of September. 

The parties interested in defending the use of this water for 
irrigating these lands maintain that the grass produced in these 
meadows by this process supports in Edinburgh 3000 cows, and 
in Leith 600 cows. It is added, "that the parties interested 
m the lands estimate the compensation which would induce 
them to discontinue tlie practice, at £150,000, or $750,000. 



IRRIGATION. 161 

This is stated as the sum which the proprietors at the west side 
of the city would be entitled to, exchisive of those at the east, 
were the practice abolished by government." 

These are certainly most extraordinary results. The estimate 
of their pecuniary value may be exaggerated ; and yet this would 
be difficult. The subject is of such immense importance, that I 
shall presently again refer to it. I may be allowed to add, in 
passing, that which I know will not be disdained, but the more 
highly appreciated, by the most cultivated mind — that the pro- 
cess, however humble, by which that which is offensive and 
poisonous may be changed into that which is agreeable and 
nutritious, and that which is loathsome be converted into the 
highest forms of fertility and beauty, is among the most affecting 
wonders of a beneficent and divine Providence. 

8. WiLLESDEN, Middlesex. — The next example of irriga- 
tion, to which I shall refer, is of a different kind from those of 
which I have spoken ; but it may properly be classed under the 
same head ; and its character is so extraordinary, and its practi- 
cal bearings so important, that I am anxious to present it to my 
readers. Having repeatedly visited the farm, and being person- 
ally acquainted with the enterprising proprietor, I am prepared 
to affirm the statements, however remarkable, which I shall 
present. 

Mr. William Dickenson is the proprietor of a very large estab- 
lishment of horses in London, which are kept for what is here 
called jobbing; that is, supplying noblemen, gentlemen, and 
others, with horses of the best description, and at their pleasure, 
for daily use or for journeys, by the week, or month, or year. 
In this case, the contractor furnishes as many horses as are agreed 
upon ; and in the event of lamieness, or disease, or incompetency, 
or at the hirer's own caprice, the latter may change his horses as 
often as he pleases. Whether these horses shall be kept by the 
contractor when the hirer is in the town, or by the hirer at his own 
stables, is matter of agreement. Such an arrangement is com- 
mon, even with some of the richest men in the kingdom, whose 
fine teams are jobbed or hired ; and who, in such case, are at 
least saved from always a disagreeable and most commonly a 
dangerous intercourse with those geese-pluckers, the horse-jock- 
eys — a race of men pretty well known in all countries, who, when, 
14* 



162 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

a favorable subject falls into their hands, will not leave wilhngly 
even a pin-feather, and who value such a bird, not for the 
fineness of his flesh, nor the beauty of his plumage, but for the 
richness of his notes. 

These engagements oblige Mr. Dickenson to keep always on 
hand a large number of horses ; and his stables in London may 
be considered as model stables, from the manner in which they 
are arranged, the condition in which the animals are kept, the 
perfect cleanliness which prevails in every department, and the 
admirable provision for securing an equable temperature and a 
thorough ventilation. Among other things, likewise, an inge- 
nious provision is made for the saving of the urine of the animals, 
and, as far as possible, for preventing the escape of the ammonia, 
which high authorities deem its most valuable ingredient, in its 
transition from the stall to the tank in which it is finally col- 
lected from the various stables. To effect this, the floors of the 
stalls are laid either in brick, or stone, or a composition of the 
hardness of stone, with a gentle inclination of the floor from 
each side to the centre of the stall. Here an iron pipe is sunk, 
the whole length of the stall, similar to half a gun-barrel, with 
its concave side up, of course, into which the urine finds its 
way ; and this is covered the whole length with a thin strap 
of iron, which can easily be lifted when the conduit needs clean- 
ing. The urine goes into this channel unmixed with straw, and 
is conveyed by this pipe into a larger whole pipe in the rear of 
the stable, and is thence carried to the tank, which is placed in 
the outer yard. This tank is very securely covered, and is 
emptied into a watering cart by a pump, whenever occasion 
requires. Mr. Dickenson conceives there is great advantage in 
the liquid being thus, as far as possible, secured from the evap- 
oration of its most valuable gases. The stalls are six and a half 
feet wide ; ten feet in the whole length, with seven feet behind 
the mangers. The inclination of the floor from the sides to the 
centre, and from the front to the rear, is as little as possible, con- 
sistently with securing the passage of the urine. The number 
of horses kept here is, I believe, from 150 to 200. The liquid 
manure is, as far as possible, all saved for the use of his own 
farm. The solid parts of his manure are sold to farmers. This 
fact deserves particular notice. It is a point of the highest con- 
sideration. The stale of a horse is equal to about three gallons 



IRKIGATION. 163 

per day. If it were all saved, it would amount to about three 
and one half gallons. 

Mr. Dickenson has a farm about five miles from his home in 
London, to which all his liquid manure is carried, and there dis- 
tributed upon his growing crops, from such a cart as is usually- 
employed for watering the streets of cities. When taken out 
there, it is mixed, before application, in the proportion of one part 
of urine to two of water ; and the proportion to an acre is esti- 
mated at 1100 gallons of urine to 2200 of water ; and this is ap- 
plied as often as and soon after the grass is cut. 

The plant which he cultivates on this land is the Italian rye 
grass, {loliiim Italicmn,) which he sows, in the autumn, say in 
September or October, formerly at the rate of four bushels per 
acre, but now, by an improved drill machine, at the rate of two 
bushels per acre ; and upon looking at the two sowings, the one 
of four bushels per acre, the other of two bushels, the plants 
upon the latter sowing appeared to me more even and thick 
than where four bushels were sown in the usual way. 

Mr. Dickenson thinks he has obtained, almost by mere acci- 
dent, a very superior species of this valuable grass ; and upon 
comparing various specimens, which he had under cultivation, 
and learning his own experience in the case, there seemed good 
reason for the belief. 

"The Italian rye grass," says Mr. Lawson, "compared with 
any of the varieties of common rye grass, affords a stronger braird, 
arrives sooner at maturity, has a greater abundance of foliage, 
which is broader and of a lighter or more lively green color, 
grows considerably taller, is more upright, or less inclined to 
spread upon the ground ; its spikes are longer ; spikelets more 
thickly set ; and, upon the whole, producing a less bulk of seed, 
which is smaller, has the awn adhering to it, and is generally 
little more than half the weight per bushel of that of common 
perennial rye grass (loUum perenne) when grown under similar 
circumstances." It is added, " If it be sown with clover, or 
lucern, its growth is so rapid that it will quickly choke them. 
It is eaten greedily by cattle, whether green or dry, and yields 
fifty per cent, of hay. After the field is harrowed, it is sown 
at the rate of from 16 to 18 pounds per acre, and the seed 
rolled in." 

" The Italian rye grass will be valuable as an early grass ; it 



164 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

retains its powers of growth to a late period in the season. A 
patch of it, which had flowered and ripened its seeds, was cut 
over in the first week in November ; and, notwithstanding the 
frosts we have since had, occasionally pretty severe for the sea- 
son of the year, [This is at Hamburgh. H. C] at which period 
vegetation is nearly dormant, these plants have put forth new 
leaves, which at present (24th December) have attained the 
length of above a foot, showing a superiority to any other grass 
in producing herbage. This grass, too, is found to be more 
hardy than the common rye grass ; for in the vicinity of Ham- 
burgh, the common rye grass will not stand the winters when 
very severe ; whereas the Italian rye grass withstands the sever- 
ities of winter even when sown in September, and, consequently, 
the plants are young and tender when the frosts prevail." 

Lord Hatherton sows annually, at Teddesley, about one hun- 
dred acres of rye grass. His letter to me states " that common 
rye grass is always sown with clover, about one peck of rye 
grass seed to the acre. Italian rye grass is generally sown alone, 
three bushels to the acre, and may be mown three times." 

At Mr. Littledale's, Birkenhead, near Liverpool, I saw the 
Italian rye grass in a state of great luxuriance, the second year's 
growth ; but it had been irrigated from the stable. Mr. Dicken- 
son says to me, " I should continue the field two years under 
grass, and then plough up for grain ; but the plant will continue 
stronger or weaker according to the treatment, and whether you 
take seed or not. The grower must judge a little for himself. 
The grass is excellent food for working horses, and makes an 
abundance of milk from cows. Ewes and lambs do better upon 
it than upon any thing I have ever given them." 

The soil of Mr. Dickenson is a stifl" clay, with which he mixes 
the rubbish gathered from the removal of old buildings in Lon- 
don, and consisting of sand and lime. In 1844, he mowed his 
rye grass ten times — 

First in March, with about ten inches of grass ; 

April 13, a second time ; 

May 4, a third time ; 

May 25, a fourth time ; 

June 14, a fifth time ; 

July 22, a sixth time; with ripe seed and 
three loads of hay straw to the acre. 



IRRIGATION. 165 

Immediately after each of these crops, the land was watered 
once from a London street water-cart, with one part of pure urine 
from the stables and two parts of water, the produce of each 
crop increasing with the temperature of the atmosphere from 
three quarters of a load per acre as hay to three loads per acre. 
The crop having shed a quantity of seed, he was doubtful the 
urine might injure its growing ; so discontinued to water, but well 
harrowed it with iron harrows, and left it, expecting nothing 
more from it. It produced, however, three or four light crops 
afterwards. 

In 1845, his first cutting was on the . 6th of April ; 

his second, 3d of May ; 

his third, 9th of June. 

On the 22d of September, the fourth crop on the land meas- 
ured three feet ; the sixth crop, on land which had been previously 
mown five times, measured one foot and a half. 

On the 26th of January of this year, 1846, I saw some rye 
grass, which had been cut two or three days previously from his 
fields, which measured 16 inches in length. This same field 
was mowed October 30th of the last year. It has been cut 
again the 8th of this month, (April,) 22 inches long. 

Mr. Dickenson says that, when he has wished to relieve the 
tanks in the winter season, he has put on pure urine with excel- 
lent effect. He has also put on two parts urine and one water, 
and one part urine and one water, and two parts water and one 
urine. He is disposed to think, if there is such a quantity of 
urine as to render it indifferent how much is used, it may be 
applied pure to that description of grass, on almost all occasions, 
with success ; but the eSect would be greater on the land and 
plant in proportion to the temperature of the atmosphere. He 
advises to dilute more as the temperature rises, and for ordinary 
grasses to the extent of five or six parts of water. For the 
clover he thinks it ineffectual. 

I was solicitous to know the actual amount of grass or hay 
probably obtained from an acre. He took the trouble to weigh 
accurately the produce of a yard square, of the fifth crop of 
grass of the season ; and the following is his reply to me : — 

" A yard of grass, cut in the presence of Cap- 
tain Buller, weighed lbs. 5f 

Dried 12 days in the open air " 2^ 



166 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Dried further 3 days in a room heated to 59° 

Fahrenheit, and weighed (standing weight) lbs. 2| 

Dried 3 days in a kitchen at 70° of heat, and 

weighed " 2 10 oz. 

Roasted 2 hours before the fire, and weighed . " 2 6^ " 

" This was the third crop of grass with the second crop of seed, 
and it is the only instance I have been particular to measure, 
cut and dry the produce, and this to satisfy one who had seen 
the previous crop cleared from the field ; and this would be at 
the rate of about 5 tons 3 cwt. to the acre." 

I saw in Manchester the produce of three cuttings of one 
season of Italian rye grass, the united length of which was more 
than 13 feet. 

Such are the important statements, which I have verified upon 
my own repeated personal observation, and which I have the 
greatest pleasure in communicating to the farmers of the United 
States. I have no hesitation in saying that the verification of 
such extraordinary facts as these, and their communication to a 
wide extent, are infinitely more than a compensation for the toil, 
and labor, and expense, of my visit to this country ; indeed, are 
not to be put for a moment in comparison with them ; for if prop- 
erly improved, this information must be worth millions to the 
country. I claim no priority of discovery, and I cannot presume 
that this information may not have reached the country in a hun- 
dred forms, in these days when the press pours out its treasures, 
as, in its great inundations, the Mississippi pours out its floods over 
an immense country, and sends its waters into every creek, and 
crevice, and fissure, of that wide expanse. But I know my 
friends will value a personal confirmation of these facts, and 
will feel, with me, greatly obliged to Mr. Dickenson for the full 
communication of the results of his experiments. 

These experiments are most important in showing, first, what 
an amount of stock may be kept upon a small space of ground 
when under the best cultivation, and by means within the 
reach of many farmers. Where a piece of ground is devoted to 
this object, within an easily accessible distance from the stables 
or yards, it is very easy to see what a quantity of produce may 
be obtained for feeding animals in the stall, either horses, cows, 
or sheep. I put this question to Mr. Dickenson, asking his de- 
liberate opinion, " How many horses, in a good season, may be fed 



IRRIGATION. 167 

from an acre, and for what length of time ? " To which he 
replied, " Four horses in a straw yard consumed in one day 
seven yards by five and a half of the Italian rye grass, having 
no other food, and not being in work, but running loose in the 
yard at their own pleasure." The answer, I am aware, is indefi- 
nite, because the condition of the grass and the actual weight 
gathered at the time of cutting are not given ; yet the fact is 
worth something as the foundation of a conjectural estimate. 
My readers may be curious to know the army allowance for 
a horse of dry feed per day — 14 lbs. of hay, 10 lbs. oats, 7 lbs. 
straw, each horse ; with hard work, less hay and more corn ; with 
little work, less corn and more hay. 

But more important than any thing else is the illustration 
which these results give of the extraordinary value of urine as 
manure. I asked Mr. Dickenson if he would add the solid 
manure, if it were at hand ; to which he replied, "No." 

This is a very homely subject, I am aware ; but it is one of 
the most important in the whole range of agricultural inquiry. 
In cities, it essentially concerns decency, cleanliness, and heahh ; 
and I have yet to learn that to a mind with its moral taste not 
depraved, and not cursed by a habit of vile associations, there is 
any thing indecent in speaking of any of the processes of nature, 
which are all recuperative, wonderful, and beneficent. " Honi 
soit qui maly pense.^'' Neither in Boston, New York, Philadel- 
phia, nor indeed in any other city in the United States, have I 
known any systematic attempt to save the sewerage water for 
agricultural purposes ; and yet I believe, at a very small expense 
a vast amount of the urine might be collected and carried out 
of the city by the neighboring farmers, without offence to any 
body, and with very great public and private advantage. I be- 
lieve that, in many cases, it might, with a little pains, be collected 
from private and public houses, from stables, and from public 
urinals established in different parts of the city, which are very 
much wanted in the great thoroughfares, on grounds of health 
and comfort as well as decency ; and that the farmers, who are 
now in the habit of buying solid manure, at the stables of the 
city, at very heavy prices, would find even a much greater advan- 
tage in removing the liquid manure, after proper arrangements 
for its collection and removal should have been made. A very 
high authority states that " human urine is particularly rich m 



168 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

nitrogen ; and that it has been ascertained by analysis in this 
respect that one hundred parts of the urine of a heahhy man are 
equal to thirteen hundred parts of the fresh dung of a horse, and 
to six hundred parts of the fresh dung of a cow." 

" The urine of men and of carnivorous animals contains a 
large quantity of nitrogen, partly in the form of phosphates, 
{>artly as urea. Urea is converted, during putrefaction, into car- 
bonate of ammonia ; that is to say, it takes the form of the very 
salt which occurs in rain water. Human urine is the most 
powerful manure for all vegetables containing nitrogen ; that of 
horses and horned cattle contains less of this element, but infi- 
nitely more than the solid excrements of these animals." * 

I do not deem it necessary to cite any other authorities on 
this subject. Mr. Dickenson's experience in the case is conclu- 
sive ; and he finds it for his advantage to save all the urine of 
his stables, to carry it in carts a distance of five miles, and is 
content to sell to those who will buy it his solid manure. 

Next to the introduction of fresh water into a city, the disposi- 
tion of its waste or sewerage, in respect to the sanatory condition 
of the population, is most important, and ought to occupy in- 
tensely the consideration of the public men, and men of influence, 
and the municipal authorities, in the United States. The influ- 
ence of cleanliness upon health, comfort, and morals, in all cities 
or large aggregations of people, is of immense moment. In all 
public works of drainage, extreme care should be taken to guard 
against hurtful mistakes in the beginning ; and to make, under 
the direction of the highest and most practical and experienced 
engineering skill, such arrangements as will be efi"ectual and 
substantial without any mean reference to expense. Where any 
portion of the sewerage of a city can be saved without oflence, 
and without danger to health, the results at Edinburgh, as evin- 
cing the value of such savings, show to how much considera- 
tion the matter is entitled. The agricultural value of one por- 
tion of this saving is estimated in Edinburgh at £150,000 
sterling, which would be equal to a sura yielding an interest of 
$45,000 per year. This, we are to understand, is already ob- 
tained with very imperfect arrangements. After making a 
deduction of all the miscellaneous matters which go to swell 

* Liebig, p. 97. 



IRRIGATION. 169 

the heap, " it is calculated that, in a city containing 100,000 
inhabitants, there is produced of human manure 24,440 tons a 
year, sullicient, according to Liebig, to manure 50,000 acres of 
land, and, if conveyed to the soil by irrigation, worth at least 
£12,000 a year, [or $60,000,] and probably much more." If 
even one half of this could be so saved and applied, it is obvious 
how much would be gained. 

The subject is now, in England, occupying, to an intense 
degree, the minds of many of the most distinguished men — politi- 
cians, magistrates, agriculturists, and philanthropists — in the king- 
dom. A company has been formed, with a capital of one million 
pounds sterling, and by men who are entirely above any plan 
of mere speculation, for the purpose of supplying towns with 
water, and availing of the drainage of large towns for agricul- 
tural purposes. Some of the first engineers in the kingdom are 
actively engaged in their service. One of them, Mr. James Smith, 
of Deanston, the eminent agricultural improver, whose system 
of thorough drainage and subsoiling may be said to constitute 
an era in agricultural improvement, has laid before the public a 
plan for conveying the sewerage of towns into the country for 
agricultural uses, by means of pipes, which is now being carried 
out in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. His plan is, having col- 
lected the sewerage water of a town into a convenient receptacle, 
to force it, by means of a pump, to a sufficient altitude to send it 
into the country through large pipes, to be used for the purpose 
of irrigation of lands below the level where it is received, or of 
applying it to other lands by means of a pipe and hose. 

I do not deem it necessary here to give all the elements of his 
calculation ; but the result is that, in supplying an equal amount 
of the elements and requisites of vegetation, the cost of manuring 
one acre 

with sewerage water, upon his plan, would be £0 12 s. 9d. 

" guano, 2i cwt. at 8 s 10 

" farm-yard manure, 15 tons, at 4 s. ... 3 
It is added that, "by an experiment made last season on a por- 
tion of meadow in Lancashire, applying at the rate of 15 tons 
of farm-yard manure per acre, and 3 cwt. of guano to another 
equal portion, their effects were found to be inferior to the 8 
tons of sewerage water applied to a similar extent of ground. 
The amount of fertilizing matters contained in the water was 

VOL. II. 15 



170 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

not ascertained, but, assuming a similar quantity to that found 
in the Edinburgh sewer-water, the amount applied must have 
been about 1792 gallons per acre, which is less than the quantity 
which Mr. Smith proposes to apply to tillage land under his 
improved method of conveyance. 

The proposition at first is startling, and may awaken incredu- 
lity. I can only say that the plan is proposed and approved by 
men of as much engineering skill, and of as much practical expe- 
rience, as are to be found in the world. It certainly should not 
be condemned, unheard, in a day when cities are every where 
lighted with blazing air; information is communicated hundreds, 
and soon will be thousands, of miles, instantaneously, by means 
of electricity; and men are conveyed from one end of a conti- 
nent to another, over wide-spreading lands, and heaving and 
boisterous oceans, with the swiftness of a swallow's flight, under 
the wings of a steam dragon. 

Having now treated at large some of the prominent operations 
in English husbandry, I shall proceed to speak of other points 
in their management, which deserve attention. 



CIV. — THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 

The rotation of crops implies the alternation or succession 
of different crops on the same land. It is well ascertained by 
frequent and long experience, that where the same cultivated 
crop is frequently repeated on the same land, and allowed to per- 
fect itself, its product will be diminished, and in some cases will 
fail altogether. The grasses would seem to present an exception 
in this case ; but they are commonly mowed or depastured, and 
so do not ripen their seed. Where grasses proceed to perfection, 
certainly it may be said, in respect to many of them, that they 
are subject to the same rule. Forest-trees likewise mny be con- 
sidered as forming an exception, though it must be remembered 
that they supply their own nutriment from the decay of their 
own foliage, and that, although they bear fruit while young, yet 
they are many years in reaching a perfect maturity ; and even 



THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 171 

in respect to forest-trees, nature, in many cases, clearly indicates 
the necessity of a change of production, in that where you cut 
down a forest of oak, it is usually followed by a growth of pine, 
and where you remove a forest of pine, there will spring up a 
growth of oak ; the soft and the hard woods thus alternating with 
each other. 

Sometimes it is found that the substitution of a single differ- 
ent crop is sufficient to prepare the land for the repetition of the 
former one. In some cases, the crop can be repeated with ad- 
vantage after an interval of two, three, or more years. In some 
instances, the land, if left to itself, or what is called a naked 
fallow, becomes, after a year or more, prepared for the repetition 
of the first crop. The regular and plentiful manuring of the 
land will enable the land to bear the repetition, though there 
are cases in which even this ceases to restore the land to its 
former condition. It is found likewise that crops of the same 
family, though not of the same kind, will not follow each other 
to advantage. Thus the cereal grains, wheat, rye, barley, and 
oats, are considered improper to follow each other in immediate 
succession. The English divide their crops into two kinds, white 
and green crops. The grain crops are white crops ; the green 
crops are the esculent vegetables, such as turnips, ruta-baga or 
swedes, carrots, parsnips, beets, cabbages, peas, beans ; although 
the two latter, which are cultivated for their seeds, would seem 
more properly placed among the white crops. There is, how- 
ever, another distinction between the narrow-leaved and the 
broad-leaved plants, which is to be considered in this case The 
narrow-leaved plants, such as the grains and grasses, receive 
their nourishment mainly, as is supposed, from their roots, which 
are numerous and fibrous ; the broad-leaved plants, such as tur- 
nips, cabbages, beans, and peas, and the clovers, receive their 
nourishment chiefly from the atmosphere, and do not therefore 
so severely tax the soil. This difference, it is supposed, allows 
of one of these crops being alternated with the other without 
prejudice to either. I am giving, in this case, the theory of 
others, which certainly, to a casual observer, seems plausible 
enough. I trust I may be allowed to demur to it, or at least to 
hold my judgment in suspense, because, to my mind, the proof 
is wanting. It remains, in my opinion, yet to be established 
that any plants receive their nourishment through their leaves. 



172 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

It would be presumptuous to pronounce it impossible, but the 
proof does not appear conclusive. Two other theories have 
been suggested to account for the necessity or expediency of an 
alternation or change of crop. The first is, that every plant 
throws out from its roots, as excrement, that which is unfavora- 
ble to the growth of, or poisonous to, any plant of the same kind 
that may succeed it, but which, on the other hand, may be favor- 
able to the growth, or be the proper food, of a plant of another 
kind. It is maintained, that by the cultivation of another kind 
of plant, of different wants from the former, this pernicious excre- 
ment is used up ; or even by the suspension of cultivation, by 
what is termed a staked fallow, by the stirring or ploughing of 
the ground without cultivation of any crop, this offensive matter 
is destroyed, and the former plant may be again successfully 
cultivated. 

The second opinion is, that different kinds of crops make 
demands of different elements from the soil ; that the cultivation 
of a particular crop tends to exhaust the soil of the ingredients 
or elements which it particularly requires ; that this element 
may be sometimes artificially supplied by manuring ; or that the 
land being suffered to remain without cropping, or by a succes- 
sion of different crops, nature itself will provide for a renewal of 
the deficient or exhausted element. The former theory is in a 
great measure abandoned ; the latter is the prevalent opinion 
with those who claim a right to speak with authority. 

The latter theory, however, is not without some difficulties or 
exceptions. Onions, for example, are cultivated successfully, 
year after year, on the same land, from preference, because it is 
found that the longer the land has been accustomed to this crop, 
the more favorable does it become to the growth of it. I have 
known cases in which Indian corn has been successfully culti- 
vated forty years without interruption on the same land. A 
distinguished agricultural traveller and observer,* says that he 
has seen, "in the table lands of the Andes, wheat fields which 
had yielded excellent crops annually for more than two centu- 
ries ; and that potatoes may come again and again upon the 
same soil ; they are incessantly cultivated at Santa Fe and 
Quito, and nowhere are they of better quality." 

* Boussingault. 



THE KOTATION OF CROPS. 173 

In all these cases, which seem to militate against a theory 
perfectly rational in itself, there may be circumstances unde- 
tected or unobserved, which, if known, would fully explain the 
exception. I do not mean to deny this theory, and certainly not 
to throw any discredit upon the aid which science may give to 
agriculture ; but these matters are not so simple as we are dis- 
posed to think them. 

The confidence and presumption of knowledge abate the 
desire of further attainment, and remove the stimulants to in- 
quiry. Science has yet a great work to perform for agriculture ; 
and when chemistry can, by analytical examination, show pre- 
cisely what is wanted in any particular soil for the growth of 
any particular crop, and how it may be supplied, we shall hail 
the discovery as one of the highest importance, and the noblest 
triumph which it can achieve. We believe, at least we con- 
fidently hope, that this may be done. We know what has 
been promised in this matter, and wait patiently its fulfilment. 
Agriculture will then be reduced to a system of rules so simple 
and exact that the plainest mind caimot mistake the course to 
be pursued. 

At present, we must be guided by practical experience. Most 
crops are found to diminish in their yield the more frequently 
they are repeated in immediate succession upon the same land. 
Manuring for every crop will not always prevent this, although 
it will commonly do it where an ample supply is to be had. 
Some crops, it would seem, will bear a repetition much less fre- 
quently than others. Red clover bears to be repeated only once 
in four or six years, and some farmers would introduce it into 
the course of crops only once in twelve years; yet here we are 
not without dissent, for an experienced and observing farmer 
says, it may be cultivated as often as we please, provided the soil 
is sufficiently consolidated. Flax, it is constantly said, cannot 
be successfully cultivated oftener than once in five years ; yet in 
one of the counties of New York they cultivate it with advan- 
tage every other year, and the experiment in Ireland has been 
equally successful. There cannot, however, in spite of these 
exceptions, remain a doubt, that, in the present state of agricul- 
tural knowledge, there should be an alternation or rotation of 
crops, as the surest mode of obtaining the largest product from 
the ground, and of keeping up the condition of the soil, I have 
15* 



174 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

known rye sowed, year after year, on the same land, for a length 
of time, with a constantly-improving product ; but in this case, 
clover was always sowed with the rye ; and this clover, in a state 
of luxuriance, was always turned in by the plough with the rye 
stubble, or, as it is here termed, " smothered," preparatory to the 
land's being again sown with rye. 

One great object in any rotation of crops, which might be 
adopted, should be to make the intermediate crop, which is sup- 
posed to be fed upon the land, prepare the land for the crop, 
which is to follow. Thus it is that a green crop, which is ma- 
nured, will itself do much in manuring the land for a white crop. 
While the amount of manure which is applied to a green crop 
can hardly be excessive, the same manure, if applied to a white 
crop, would be likely to increase the straw at the expense of the 
grain, and render its growth so luxuriant, or, if the term be allow- 
able, so plethoric, that it would be liable to disease or blight, or 
to perish by being lodged. 

The course of crops varies in different localities, according to 
the nature of the soil and the climate ; and the kinds of crops 
grown depend likewise much upon local circumstances, such as 
the vicinity of a market, and the demand which that market 
creates. The most common rotation, and that which goes, by 
way of eminence, by the name of the Norfolk system, is called a 
fourshift rotation, and consists of, 1st year, turnips ; 2d, barley ; 
3d, clover ; 4th, wheat. In this case, there is usually but one 
manuring or dunging for the course, and that is given to the 
turnips. But, then, under the best husbandry, the turnips are 
fed to sheep which are folded upon the land, the turnips general- 
ly being cut and given to them in troughs, the fold being formed 
of hurdles, and changed frequently ; and the clover likewise is 
fed upon the ground by sheep. The wheat and the barley go 
to market ; and the straw is reserved for feeding and for litter in 
the barn-yards and stalls. On an English farm, no straw is ever 
suffered to be sold or carried off the place, unless an equivalent 
in dung or other manure is brought on. In some parts of Kent, 
it is stated that wheat and beans are alternated continually. On 
a farm in Gloucestershire, much celebrated for its good manage- 
ment, turnips, potatoes, and wheat, constitute the alternation of 
crops, though sometimes a crop of vetches or rape intervenes, 
which is fed off upon the land. In this case, a great deal of 



THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 175 

manure is purchased and brought upon the land. In some 
places, in the county of Kent for example, a six years' course is 
recommended: thus, 1st, swedes, [rutabaga,] well manured, and 
fed off with sheep, who at the same time have a plentiful allow- 
ance of oil cake, than which nothing contributes more to the 
enriching of the manure ; 2d year, barley or oats ; 3d, clover ; 
4th, wheat ; 5th, peas or beans ; 6th, wheat. In this case, the 
wheat, the beans, and the peas, have a dressing of dung ; and in 
some cases, in the third year, beans are substituted for clover ; 
and in the fifth year, clover for peas and beans. 

" On land of a second rate quality, the five-field course is com- 
mon : 1st, turnips ; 2d, barley ; 3d, clover ; 4th, wheat ; 5th, oats. 
This is found to bring the clover tilth too often ; to remedy 
which the following course is sometimes adopted : 1st, turnips ; 
2d, barley ; 3d, half clover, half peas or tares ; 4th, half wheat, 
half oats ; 5th, half oats, half peas. This brings the clover 
round only once in ten years, when the crop becomes much 
more certain." 

A very experienced farmer has been kind enough to commu- 
nicate to me what he deems an eligible rotation for a " farm, of a 
heavy soil, varying from four to eight inches in depth, resting 
on a stratum of strong brick clay from two to three feet in 
thickness, the substratum being the red crumbly or dried marl, 
intermixed, in some places, with thin slaty stone, and containing 
occasionally gypsum. All the arable land has been drained with 
tiles, in the furrows or divisions of the land, which vary from 
five to nine yards in width, about eighteen inches deep. The 
cold springs, pressing beneath the stratum of clay, in the greater 
part of the farm, have been cut ofi" in an effectual manner by a 
few large under-drains, varying from ten to sixteen feet in depth. 
About half the arable land is considered to be totally unfit for 
the grov/th of turnips ; on the other half the cultivation of tur- 
nips has for sev^eral years been part of the rotation, and lately 
with considerable success, for the purpose of carting off into the 
farm-yards and pasture-grounds ; but no part of the land is dry 
enough, or properly calculated for feeding off the turnips with 
sheep." 

Each division of the farm consists of twelve fields or enclo- 
sures, and is worked on a double rotation of six years. The 
rotation has been, 1st, common turnips; 2d, barley ; 3d, white 



176 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

clover and rye grass, pastured ; 4th, ditto ; 5th, wheat ; 6th, 
winter tares ; 7th, Swedish turnips j 8th, barley ; 9th, red clover ', 
10th, wheat ; 11th, beans; 12th, wheat. 

In this case, the turnips, the first year, are manured with ten 
two-horse cart-loads of manure to the acre, well turned in in 
the spring. The crops of the third and fourth year are fed off 
by sheep on the land. The sixth year, the tares have a moder- 
ate dressing of manure. The seventh year, the Swedish turnips, 
besides twelve two-horse loads of manure, have likewise applied 
forty bushels of ashes and bone dust. The ninth year, a slight 
dressing of manure is applied to the land after the first crop is 
taken off for soiling. The eleventh year, the land is manured 
with seven or eight two-horse cart-loads of manure, applied be- 
fore sowing in the spring. 

The rotation of crops pursued by Mr. John Morton, on the 
Whitfield Example farm, which I had the pleasure of visiting, is 
for a clay soil, as follows : 1st year, swedes and mangel-wur- 
zel ; 2d year, wheat and beans ; 3d, clover ; 4th, wheat and 
oats, that is, part of the land in each ; 5th, vetches, rye, early 
turnips ; 6th, wheat. 

On a sandy soil, the rotation is as follows : 1st, swedes and 
mangel-wurzel; 2d, barley; 3d, clover; 4ih, oats; 5th, cab- 
bage, potatoes ; 6th, wheat. 

On a limestone soil, 1st year, rye and turnips ; 2d, barley ; 
3d, clover ; 4th, oats ; 5th, turnips ; 6th, wheat. 

I do not deem it necessary to cite any more examples of the 
rotation of crops ; and my object has been, not to prescribe any 
particular rule of management, but merely to illustrate the prac- 
tice which prevails here. How far it would be eligible, or 
adapted to the condition of agriculture, in the United States, is 
quite another question, and must receive a very different answer 
in different localities. Many of the crops which are cultivated 
here are not, within my knowledge, cultivated at all in the Uni- 
ted States, such as vetches or tares, though I have myself tried 
them upon a small scale, and have known one or two farmers to 
experiment upon them in the same way ; and, in the next place, 
there is here an incapacity to grow a crop which is common with 
us, — the maize, or Indian corn, — a crop, which, in my honest 
opinion, all its uses being considered, is the most valuable prod- 
uct that ever came out of the ground. 



THE UOTATION OF CROPS. 177 

The examples which I have given will serve to illustrate the 
systematic form in which agriculture is pursued here. Accord- 
ing to the rotation determined on, the farm is divided into por- 
tions, and each one comes, in its turn, into a regular course of 
cropping. With the tenant farmers, this is not a matter of choice, 
but is commonly strictly prescribed in the lease, and is not suf- 
fered to be departed from. The great principles of cultivation 
and management which they suggest must be obvious; first, that 
a regular change or rotation of crops is always advisable in 
order to secure the largest product from the land ; next, that the 
white and the green crops should alternate with each other ; that 
two white crops should not follow each other, and seldom two 
green crops ; that the manure should be applied for the green 
crops, and that the green crops should always be consumed by 
stock upon the farm ; and, where the nature of the land admits 
of it, by stock, sheep in particular, folded upon the land which 
it is desired to put into a condition for a grain crop. 

Formerly, it was deemed indispensable to introduce into the 
course what is called a naked fallow, in which a season was lost ; 
for, though the land was cultivated, no crop was grown. This 
was done for two reasons — first, because it was supposed that, in 
a course of cropping, the land occasionally required rest ; but 
secondly, with a view of exterminating the weeds, or noxious 
plants with which the land was infested. The former doctrine 
is now exploded, and it is considered that, by the substitution of 
a different crop, the land may be occupied continually ; and 
clover crops by their tap-roots, and all crops which are fed and 
expended upon the land on which they are grown, so far from 
being considered as exhausting, must be regarded as enriching 
crops. The second reason for a fallow must be admitted to 
have much force. The degree to which many fields here are 
infested with weeds, with charlock, dock, poppy, and, above sX\, 
with twitch grass, (iriticum repens,) is most remarkable ; and the 
latter, propagating itself, as it does, from even the smallest fibre 
or joint, cannot be got rid of without extreme pains, by harrow- 
ing, grubbing, and picking it out by forks and by hand. On a 
piece of ground under the process of being cleaned I have seen 
the collected heaps of it as thick and large as haycocks on a 
iiewly-mown field. A hoed crop, of course, presents an opportu- 
nity of cleaning xYxq ground as cfF&ctually almost as a naked 
fallow. 



178 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

It will be for the farmers in the United States to consider how 
far the rotation of crops deserves their attention, and, if any par- 
ticular course be adopted, what is best suited to their particular 
condition or locality. The same course is obviously not alike 
adapted to soils of different character, or to places varying in 
climate and in their demands for particular articles of produce. 
I am quite aware that, at present, in the United States, there are 
few examples of what may be called a systematic agriculture ; 
and in many parts of the country, especially in the new states, 
where the virgin soil is unexhausted, and in some cases its exu- 
berant riches would seem almost inexhaustible, — for in parts of 
the western territories, in the prairies and bottom lands, I have 
seen the rich alluvial soil exposed to the depth of eighteen 
feet, — it would seem to be of little consequence to present gen- 
erations by what course the land should be cultivated. But to 
the perfection of the art of agriculture, to the realization of its 
greatest products, and, above all, to the attainment of that great 
point of good husbandry, the obtaining of the largest and most 
profitable return from the land at the least expense of labor, at 
the least injury to the soil, and, as it may be hoped in many 
cases, with an actual benefit or improvement to the soil, without 
doubt an exact system of cultivation and a regular course of 
crops will be found indispensable. The climate of England and 
the southern parts of Scotland presents advantages which we in 
the Northern and Middle States, perhaps in most other parts of 
the United States, cannot enjoy. The mildness of the winters 
here enables them to fold their sheep, and to feed the crops to 
them in the fields where they grow, during any part of the sea- 
son. In very rare instances are the sheep ever housed, or even 
sheltered or protected ; and in many parts of the country the 
turnips are eaten by the sheep where they grew, or are pulled 
as they are wanted and given to them in the fold. Where this 
is not the case, the turnips are either pitted or placed where they 
grew. To " pit " them is to place them in heaps in the field, some- 
times digging a hole of a foot deep to receive them, and, after 
bringing as many loads to the heap as is deemed convenient or 
proper, shaping the pile like the steep roof of a house, and, after 
putting on a layer of straw over the turnips, adding to this a 
layer of dirt of a sufficient thickness to secure them from frost. 
To '• place " the turnips, is to pull two rows of turnips, and, with- 



THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 179 

out removing the tops or the earth from the bottoms, lo place 
them close on each side of the intermediate row that is left in 
the ground. A plough is then passed down on each side, and 
the whole are covered by the earth being turned upon them. 
These are secured from frost, and are accessible at pleasure 
through the winter, and given to the stock as wanted. 

My own conviction, and that founded upon no little personal 
experience and observation, is, that the farmers in the United 
States, where circumstances favor it, would find a great ad- 
vantage in growing esculent vegetables for their stock, especially 
turnips, swedes, and mangel-wurzel ; and where these are prop- 
erly pitted in the fields, they may be preserved from the most 
severe frosts, and at the same time be accessible, in the coldest 
weather, at the southern end, which may be secured by bundles 
of straw, to be removed and replaced at pleasure. That, during 
our long winters, a supply of such vegetables would very much 
conduce to the health and comfort of our stock, that they would 
be found most valuable for cows in milk and in calf, and for 
fatting cattle and sheep, is certain ; and the cultivation, of them 
would yield an ample profit, and the return of manure from the 
consumption of them upon the farm would prove most valuable. 
In this way, likewise, the straw of the farm would be converted 
into rich manure. 

It will be observed that, in any rotation of crops to which I 
have referred, there is little provision for hay. Comparatively, 
very little hay is grown, excepting for market, or for the horses 
on a farm ; and what is grown is husbanded with the most ex- 
emplary care — with a care which would much astonish many of 
our farmers, whose habits in this respect are extremely wasteful. 
On many farms there are meadows in permanent grass ; some 
portion of the clover crop is usually dried and cured ; and when 
rye grass forms a part of the rotation, it is almost always con- 
verted into hay. The main dependence for the stock, with the 
exceptions above named, is upon the esculent vegetables and the 
straw. As soon as the spring advances, there is a supply of rye 
sown for the purpose of being fed green to the stock, or of win- 
ter vetches, and the farm horses are usually soiled through the 
summer upon the latter crop, of which I shall presently give a 
more particular account. 



180 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



CV. — SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 

The practice of soiling stock prevails to some, but not, within 
my observation, to a great, extent in England. The soiling of 
stock implies the keeping of them in stables or yards all the 
season, and bringing to them green feed, when it is to be ob- 
tained, cut fresh from the fields. I have not been able to get 
that exact information on the subject, which I should have de- 
sired ; and perhaps it would be vain to look for it. 

Work horses are almost universally soiled in England upon 
clover, rye grass, rye, vetches or tares, or rye and vetches sown 
together. These are sown expressly for this purpose. The 
horses are frequently kept upon them without any additional 
feed ; but when on the road, or when the farm work is severe, 
they require grain of some sort in addition. 

Sheep, as I have before said, which are in a course of prepa- 
ration for the market, and sometimes store sheep, especially those 
which have lambs by their side, that are designed for market, 
are folded, and the tares cut green and conveyed to them, which 
may be considered as soiling. A large stock on Lord Hather- 
ton's admirably managed farm at Teddesley Park, in Stafford- 
shire, are soiled ; and their good condition evinced the excellent 
care which was taken of them. In many cases, in small hold- 
ings, I have found the system pursued with great success. On 
Lord Gosford's estates in Ireland, under the judicious and excel- 
lent care of Mr. Blacker, who has the superintendence, as he in- 
formed me, of several hundreds of tenants, (such are the subdivis- 
ions of estates in that country,) I found that among many of these 
small tenants he had introduced the practice of soiling their 
cows. Several, whom I visited, were keeping in good health, 
and with great advantage, three or four cows, where formerly 
they kept but one, and that one in a half-starved condition. It 
is said that in Ireland a cow is sometimes recommended for her 
capacity of getting her own living by leaping hedge and ditch, 
and foraging any where at her pleasure. Under a system of 
soiling, that branch of her education might well be dispensed 
with, much to the advantage of the peace of the neighborhood. 

That a great saving of food is effected by soiling there can 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 181 

be no doubt ; no one rates it at less than two to one ; many say 
that three animals, some assert with confidence that four ani- 
mals, can be well kept upon the produce of land, if soiled, where 
not more than one could be kept if depastured. The difference, 
undoubtedly, in this respect, is very great in favor of soiling ; 
but its expediency upon the whole, in any given case, will be 
affected by a variety of local circumstances. 

The soiling of work horses on a farm is always to be advised. 
They require the most particular superintendence ; but this can 
be given to them only when they are near at hand. They 
should be protected against those extreme changes of tempera- 
ture from which they are likely to suffer if turned into a pasture 
at night after a hard day's work. They require to have their 
food prepared for and brought to them ; otherwise much of the 
time, which should be given to sleep and repose, is necessarily 
devoted to obtaining their food ; and a horse turned empty at 
night into a pasture, will be likely to pass a great part of that 
night in filling his stomach. The same remark applies also to 
working oxen. It is highly creditable to the English farmers 
that their work horses are attended to with the most particular 
and faithful care, as to cleaning, littering, feeding, working, and 
watering. I have referred already to the practice of one distin- 
guished farmer, who never allowed his horses to be trimmed, or 
curried, or housed, against their inclination. He was of opinion, 
that Nature, in this respect, was the best guide ; and that she 
gave the animals their thick and matted coat, in winter, when 
they required it, and it was, therefore, wrong to deprive them of 
it ; and in the spring she took equal care in divesting them of 
the covering, which then became oppressive and superfluous. 
There may be some reason in this ; but whenever I see either 
horses or men in this shaggy and wild-bear condition, I cannot 
help thinking that nature. may be somewhat improved upon. It 
cannot be said of this farmer, however, that he did not give his 
horses the opportiuiity of sheltering themselves if so they chose; 
for he had warm sheds and open stalls, most amply littered, to 
which they might have recourse at pleasure. This latter cir- 
ctmistance, of leaving them loose, was a feature in his manage- 
ment much to be commended ; for it seems a great cruelty, 
though not an infrequent practice, to tie a hard-working horse in 

VOL. II. 16 



182 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

a close box or stall, with a short halter, where he cannot stretch 
himself, nor lie down but in a constrained position. 

Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable throughout England, as 
far as my observation has extended, than the care and kindness 
bestowed upon the horses ; excepting always the omnibus and 
cab horses in London, who seem, like galley-slaves, to be sen- 
tenced to hard labor as a punishment, and the hunting horses, 
who, especially in what are called steeple chases, which are in 
fact only trials of speed under the most unfavorable circum- 
stances, are subjected to a severity of usage absolutely barbarous. 
I had the pleasure of enjoying the hospitality of a family of 
high rank, at whose residence forty or fifty carriage and hunting 
horses were kept, and where it was the custom for the principal 
members of the family, and their guests, to visit, by a covered 
passage way, the stables late in the evening, to see that every 
thing was in order ; that the grooms and their respective charges 
were in their places, and in proper condition ; and that the noble 
animals, who contributed so essentially to their pleasure and 
comfort, were duly cared for. The establishment was a model 
of neatness and good management. I have had the pleasure to 
find many a farm stable, where the comfort and health of its 
occupants were provided for with a carefulness equally exem- 
plary. I confess I never witnessed such kind, and only proper 
care bestowed upon these noble animals without a strong desire 
that some other animals employed in the labor of the farm, cer- 
tainly not less noble, and whose toil is equally severe, were the 
objects of a similar care and kindness. 

With respect to the soiling of sheep, it could rarely be prac- 
tised on any extensive plan ; but the folding of sheep for fatten- 
ing, and with a view to enrich the land in the fields, where the 
produce grows, which may be considered as one form of soiling, 
is universally practised. Experiments have been made on the 
feeding of sheep entirely within a yard ; and the result, Avith 
respect to an eminent farmer in Yorkshire, whose establishment 
I had the pleasure of visiting, seemed to show that much was 
gained by this process, inasmuch as the animals consumed a 
much less quantity of food, in the proportion of 30 to 50, than 
animals which had a free range ; but later experiments, by other 
individuals, do not confirm these results. Mr. Pusey, for exam- 



SOILING, OR HOUSE TEEDING. 183 

pie, states, that he " kept ten Down lambs in a shed, and ten out 
of doors, weighing each lot regularly ; but found the gain of 
weight rather on the side of the lambs fed out of doors." It is 
extremely difficult to say why one experiment succeeds, and 
another of the same kind fails or gives an entirely diiferent 
result ; but this is a frequent occurrence, and requires us to draw 
conclusions from single or from few facts with extreme caution. 
We can presume to be confident only when these facts are mul- 
tiplied, and often repeated under the same circumstances, and 
always with the same results. 

With respect to the soiling of cattle, it is the case with some 
farmers that their calves are never turned into the field until 
they are a year old, and that many cattle may be said to be 
wholly reared in the stall. The fat stock, which are sent to the 
Smithfield cattle-show, and much of Avhat is designed for the 
market, are kept altogether in the stalls or in loose boxes, as they 
are here termed. 

In regard to milch cows in the country, they are commonly 
depastured ; but in the large dairy establishments of London and 
its vicinity, they are wholly soiled. After being once placed in 
the stalls, they are never untied, excepting in some cases where 
they are loosened for the purpose of being watered, until their 
milk ceases to be sufficient to meet the expense of their keeping. 
They are then fattened and sold to the butcher. The feed is 
cut and daily brought to them in a green state, sometimes from a 
considerable distance. In such a city, cows, if kept at all, must 
be kept in the house ; and during the season when green feed is 
attainable, it is of course obtained, for its advantages in increas- 
ing the milk. 

Two great advantages of soiling cattle are, first, the increase 
of manure ; and second, the keeping of more cattle on the same 
land. 

The increase of manure from soiling is very far beyond what 
would be supposed by any one not experienced. Where proper 
provision is made for this purpose, all the manure of the animals 
is saved, instead of being left and scattered either on the road 
side, or in the fields, to be dried up by the sun, or washed away 
by the rain ; and it is at hand to be applied as the farmer shall 
choose. It gives him an opportunity of converting all his long 
litter, and the straw of his farm, into the most valuable of ma- 



184 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

nure, by using it as an absorbent for a large amount of the liquid 
portions of the excrements of his cattle. It affords him likewise 
the power, by properly-constructed gutters and tanks, of saving 
his liquid manure — the best portion, if well managed, and, ac- 
cording to the estimation of many eminent farmers, compared 
with the solid portions of the manure, in point of value, fnll two 
to one. 

The next great advantage of soiling is the increased stock 
which may be kept upon the same land. From the various 
facts which have come under my observation, where the soil 
>s carefully and judiciously cultivated, and duly manured, and a 
proper rotation observed, I believe that on land under artificial 
grass or esculent crops, three animals may be soiled where one 
only is now grazed. I believe this may be done with equal or 
superior advantage to the health and thrift of the animals, and 
that, in most cases, the increase of valuable manure obtained in 
this way, will much more than pay for any extraordinary trouble 
of attendance. 

Another advantage is in the saving of interior fences upon a 
farm. Where cattle are kept constantly in barns or yards, the 
necessity of enclosures is of course done away ; and, separate 
from the saving of expense in the case, the convenience of cul- 
tivating in long lines and open fields, the saving of land, and 
the superior neatness of the cultivation, are great and obvious 
advantages. 

The trouble of cutting and carrying the fodder for a large 
stock presents to many persons an insuperable objection to soil- 
ing. This, however, must depend on local circumstances, which 
every farmer must take into consideration for himself. Without 
doubt, in some cases it might be such as to render the experi- 
ment ineligible. The difficulty of finding a supply of green 
feed sufficiently early in the spring, is likewise made an objec- 
tion. This may be an objection in many localities; but in Eng- 
land proper, where an ample supply of Swedish turnips, car- 
rots, and mangel-wurzel, are grown, and Avhere winter vetches, 
rye, Italian rye grass, and lucern, afford an early cutting, this 
objection does not apply. It has been objected that co^vs soiled 
will not give so much milk as when grazed ; on the other hand, 
the testimony of some individuals, with whom I have become 
acquainted, establishes the contrary. At Teddesley, in Stafford- 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 185 

shire, where a large stock is soiled, the opinion is, that the cows 
do not give so much milk as when grazed. At Glasnevin, Ire- 
land, the opinion of the intelligent superintendent of that estab- 
lishment is, that their production of milk under the soiling system 
is much greater than when grazed. In a trial lately reported 
upon the comparative advantages of feeding cows with malt or 
barley and other articles of food, it was found that, upon being 
taken from the fields to the stalls, the milk of these cows was 
considerably increased. It is difficult to make a comparison in 
the case upon which the matter may be confidently determined. 
The quality of milk must, to a degree, depend upon the na- 
ture, and its quantity upon the supply, of the food which the 
animal receives. Some animals naturally and constitutionally, 
from peculiarities or circumstances which have never yet been 
explained, secrete milk of a much richer quality than others. 
The Alderney or Guernsey cows are remarkable examples of this 
kind, their milk being much richer than that of any other 
breed of cows known. Yet that the quality of the milk is not 
wholly constitutional, but depends to a considerable degree upon 
the nature of the food on which the cow is fed, is well established. 
Its quantity, of course, depends upon the supply of food which 
the animal receives. It seems to be determined by experiments 
which have been made here, that, of all food, grass fed green 
will produce the largest secretions of milk. It is found, likewise, 
by experiment, that in order to the largest secretions of milk, the 
temperature in which the animal is placed must be comfortable ; 
she must be free from external annoyances ; and she must be 
''at ease in her mind." These things being equal, it is not easy 
to see why, under an ample supply of fresh grass eaten with a 
good appetite, there should not be an equal production of milk in 
the stall, as in the pasture. 

In illustration of some of my remarks, and because I think it 
may gratify the curiosity of my readers, I will here quote from a 
report just presented to Parliament in relation to the trial of dif- 
ferent articles of food upon two cows, with a view to determine 
the result upon the quantity and quality of their milk. 

" The intestines are the reservoir in which the food is placed 

for the purpose of being absorbed into the blood. The rapidity 

with which the dissolved or digested matter is taken up must, it 

is obvious, depend upon the rate at which the vessels destined 

16* 



186 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

for this purpose act : these bemg set in motion by the heart, this 
again by the nervous system, and the latter by respiration, there 
is discernible a beautiful chain of connection between the oxy- 
gen of the atmosphere and the absorbed food. If the system 
described were always in equable movement, if no influences 
were occasionally present to interfere with its proper equilibrium, 
animals would be in the condition of plants, which possess ab- 
sorbing apparatus, but are destitute of one powerful interfering 
agent in the animal economy ; this is the brain and nervous 
system, upon the condition of which depend passions and emo- 
tions of the mind. It is principally by the study of this impor- 
tant apparatus that we derive our knowledge of what is pecu- 
liarly termed the constitution of animals. Without this system, 
animals would be merely chemical machines, and we might then 
predicate, in every case, the eff'ects of particular influences, as 
one animal would then differ from another merely in the extent 
of its mechanism. This remark is to be kept in view in consid- 
ering the subsequent experiments. The cows were very differ- 
ent in reference to their nervous condition. The white cow was 
quiet and steady, generally eating equal portions and producing 
equable quantities of milk. The brown cow, on the contrary, 
was fitful in her appetite, and, of consequence, was variable in 
the amount of her products. In proportion to her weight, she 
consumed a larger amount of food than her fellow, but always 
afforded less milk, and a greater amount of butter. The va- 
riable action of her organs is well exhibited in the first series of 
tables. When at pasture, she had given two pints less than the 
white cow, and immediately before the experiments, she gave 
the same quantity as her fellow. On her arrival in Glasgow, her 
milk greatly increased; but it soon began to diminish, although 
the same amount of food was continued. That the change was 
not produced by any alteration in the food is obvious from the 
steadier result afforded by the white cow, which was also sup- 
plied with an equal weight of fodder. The amount of milk 
given by the brown cow was as much as 26 lbs. per day, when 
she was fed with grass, and upon the same kind of food the 
quantity declined to 22 lbs. ; while the milk produced by the 
white cow was, at the commencement of the experiment with 
grass, 23 lbs., and at the termination of the trial 21 lbs. ; so that 
there was a falling off, in the case of the brown cow, to the 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 187 

extent of 4 lbs., and with the Avhite cow only to the amount of 
2 lbs. That this result was not merely owhig to a deficiency of 
water was proved by experiment, which gave the same amount 
of water in the milk of both cows ; but the quantity of butter 
afforded by the brown cow amounted to 11^ lbs., while that of 
the white cow was 8Jlbs., in fourteen days, from 1427 lbs. of 
grass supplied to each animal. Again, when the animals were 
fed on steeped entire barley, the brown cow's milk fell from 22J 
lbs. to 17^ lbs., while that of the white cow's only declined from 
221bs. to 19^ lbs. ; the brown cow falling off to the extent of 
5 lbs., and the white only to the extent of 2 J lbs. These facts 
are sufficient to show that the two animals were constitutionally 
different. The occasional wild look of the brown cow, her ten- 
dency to gore those who approached her, her frequent startled 
aspect, all indicated a nervous state of excitement ; the probable 
cause of which has been already alluded to. The result of these 
experiments seem to countenance the idea that, although a hand- 
some external figure is not necessarily an indication of the high- 
est capacity in a cow to produce milk and butter, yet that it may 
conduce to afford a steady supply of milk, inasmuch as it appears 
to indicate a proper relation between the organs. " * 

That stall-feeding does not necessarily tend to reduce the 
quantity of milk, seems satisfactorily established at the various 
milk establishments which I have visited, where it is often 
found that the quantity is increased by the improved system of 
feeding under which they are placed. One milkman, of large 
experience, has assured me that he can almost at pleasure, in 
some cases, increase the quantity of milk full an eighth by a 
change of feed, as, for example, by giving them an extra supply 
of raw potatoes in addition to their other food. In acomparisoii. 
likewise, between the two modes of feeding, it must be remarked, 
that cattle wholly grazed are liable to the changes made in their 
feed by the variations of the seasons, the grass being at one time 
abundant and most succulent ; at another short, or dried up by 
drought. In the stable, their feed may be kept uniform through- 
out the season. Cows, with us, that are depastured, give a flush 
of milk in May and June, when the feed in the pastures is most 
luxuriant, but " fall away " greatly in their yield in August ; 

* Parliamentary Report on feeding Cattle with Malt, 184G. 



188 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

from which decline they but partially recover, when turned into 
the mowing fields in September and October, upon the after- 
math, or rowen. Now, although they may not, at any time, in 
the stall, give as much milk as when turned into the pasture 
at the very height of the feed, yet, their keep being equal 
throughout the season, the yield of milk will be longer kept up; 
and the whole amount given throughout the year will probably 
be more than that obtained from animals which are wholly 
grazed, and left to encounter the vicissitudes of the seasons. 

In any system of soiling, it would seem most important that 
the animals should be occasionally turned out into an open yard 
for some portion of the day, as essential to their health, rather 
than to remain tied in the same position, as they are compelled 
to be in many of the large dairy establishments in the cities, not 
only from one week or one month to another, but from the be- 
ginning to the end of the year. " It is known," say the com- 
missioners on the state of health in large towns, " that tubercular 
consumption is very prevalent among the cows which supply 
milk to the inhabitants of some large towns, where they are 
immured during part of every year in dairies perfectly closed ; 
and which, being too small for the number of animals which 
they contain, soon become filled with heated, vitiated air, for 
the removal of which no provision is made. This is remarkably 
the case with the cows belonging to the milkmen of* Paris, 
which are annually carried off by consumption in considerable 
numbers. A confirmation of the influence of this cause is aff'ord- 
ed by the exemption of the horse from consumption, although 
frequently placed in the same circumstances with the cows, but 
with intervals of exposure to fresh air, and the enjoyment of ex- 
ercise. Where a number of horses, however, are collected together 
in ill-ventilated stables, they may become consumptive. A dis- 
covery of this kind was only lately made, as to the efl"ect of 
defective ventilation on the cavalry horses in some of the gov- 
ernment barracks in England ; and it is stated that a saving of 
several thonsand pounds per annum was efli^cted by an easy 
improvement of the ventilation of the barracks near the metrop- 
olis." These statements seem to mc to have a very important 
bearing upon the construction of our stables and barns, and the 
general treatment of our live stock. The health of our live stock 
is, I fear, not sufficiently regarded. I have already alluded to 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDINCJ. 189 

it ; but the subject is of so great importance, that I may be 
allowed to reiterate my admonitions. Though they cannot tell 
their complaints, these are not the less severely felt ; and the 
animal constitution is liable to the same irregularities within, and 
to the same injurious influences from without, in one case as in 
another, in the brute as in the human animal. 

I have seen, as I have already remarked, several instances of 
soiling in this country ; but, with the exception of large milk 
establishments in the towns, and one or two large farms in the 
country, they have been upon rather a restricted scale. I have 
said that horses are almost universally soiled ; the same may be 
said of much of the fat stock, which is in preparation for an 
early market, and especially for the agricultural shows. Fatting- 
sheep, in England, are generally folded, and in most cases the 
feed is cut or pulled for them, and they arc fed from mangers or 
troughs. Other stock is generally grazed, as with us. Indeed, 
in parts of the country, especially in Scotland and Ireland, there 
is a large portion of the country which does not admit of, or 
would not pay the expense of, cultivation, and this is devoted to 
grazing, as the only beneficial use to which it can be applied. 

I am bound to say that soiling is not universally approved. 
Mr. Stephens, the eminent author of the Book of the Farm, 
says that he has tried twice the experiment of soiling his horses, 
but failed in both cases ; at one time for want of cutting grass, 
the second cutting having entirely failed that year ; and the 
other time, for want of straw for litter, until the arrival of the 
new crop.* The latter reason seems to me about as appropriate 
and valid an objection against soiling, as it would be to have 
said that his experiment of soiling failed because he had no 
stalls in which to tie his cattle, and no troughs from which to 
feed them. Litter is indispensable in order to reap from soiling 
all the advantages, which it may afford in the production of 
manure ; but it is difficult to understand with what propriety 
it can be objected to the practice of soiling, that it fails, when 
that failure is not in any way the fault of the system, but 
grows out of the deficiency or neglect of him who makes the 
experiment. The former objection has a good deal of force ; 
and it would be great imprudence or improvidence to under- 

* Book of the Farm, vol. iii. p. 851. 



190 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

take a system of soiling without an ample preparation against 
such contingencies. Mr. Dickenson's experiment, which I have 
so fully detailed in a preceding part of this Report, (p. 161,) 
and the experiments of the cow-feeders near Edinburgh, most 
clearly show what can be done. 

It does not come within my province, in this case, to detail 
what has been done in the United States in the way of soiling. 
The experiments of Josiah Q,uincy, Esq., on his estate in Quincy, 
Mass., made with great intelligence and acuteness, are detailed 
most fully in the Reports of the Massachusetts Agricultural So- 
ciety. I have in other publications referred to a dairy of Robert 
Smith, Esq., near Baltimore, where a hundred milch cows were 
soiled. Another similar establishment I have visited on Long 
Island, N. Y., where an equal or larger number of cows are 
soiled. I have likewise, in former reports, mentioned the admi- 
rable experiment of a small farmer, in Waltham, Mass., who, from 
three cows carefully soiled, and allowed to recreate themselves 
for two hours a day in the barn-yard, produced at the rate of 
thirty pounds of butter per week, for three months. But 1 will 
refer to some cases which have come under my observation 
here, always finding occasion to regret the extreme difficulty of 
obtaining from farmers in general very exact accounts of any of 
their farming operations. 

I shall give first the experience of Mr. Skilling, the intelligent 
and skilful manager of the school farm, at Glasnevin, near 
Dublin. 

At first, he was a country schoolmaster, having the manage- 
ment of four and a half acres of land. " When I adopted the 
house-feeding system," he says, " my neighbors laughed at me, and 
predicted that my cattle would die ; others said the cattle would 
give no milk. I lived near a village, through which I led my 
cows twice a day to water. They had a good appearance, as 
they were well fed ; and they ran through the village wild and 
full of spirit. This showed they were in no danger of dying ; 
and when they saw (for I was closely watched) firkin after fir- 
kin of butter going to market, they began to think there could 
be no great deficiency in the milk. I fed them on mangel-wur- 
zel and turnips ; and when other cows were dry, mine were 
giving milk. During three years, I kept three cows, and 



SOILINCJ, OR HOUSt: FKKOING. 191 

sold £6 worth of batter each year, from each cow, besides hav- 
ing a sufficiency for a family of six persons." 

When I visited Mr. S killing's well-managed establishment, he 
was then soiling sixteen cows in clean, well- ventilated, and con- 
venient stables. He states that these cows, upon an average, 
give him £15 10 s. a year, each, and this principally from the 
sale of the milk. He estimates " that a cow fed in the house 
will make twenty-five tons of liquid manure, which will be suffi- 
cient for an acre of ground." I am afraid in this case my friend 
overrates the quantity. He says, he can, " on an average, keep 
a cow on every two English acres of land." I believe that, with 
proper pains and cultivation, a cow may be kept upon less than 
two acres. I have known a cow very well kept upon one acre 
through the year, and a portion of hay annually sold from the 
same ground. " Such," he adds, "are the advantages of house- 
feeding. There may be difficulties in keeping cattle in houses; 
but people should have patience, and not let difficulties overcome 
them. The advantages that arise from house-feeding are a 
larger quantity of manure, and much more milk ; and, such 
being the case, it would appear strange that men should continue 
to practise the old plan. The system is applicable to a large 
farm, as well as to a small one. In England, the farmers do not 
keep half a sufficient stock upon their farms. They keep a 
great number of sheep, but not sufficient to compensate for the 
short stock of cattle. But it may be objected that, on a very 
large farm, say 1000 acres, it is difficult to erect a cow-house 
sufficiently large to accommodate as many cattle as would be 
necessary. The difficulty can be easily obviated. Let a num- 
ber of cottages be erected on the farm ; and beside them let 
cow-houses be built, so that the persons residing in the cottages 
can take care of the cattle in the houses next to their own. Let 
the young cattle be in one house ; the milch cattle in another ; 
the fat cattle in another ; and it will be found, at once, that the 
system is as applicable to a large farm as to a small one." Mr. 
Skilling, it will be seen from these statements, is of a sanguine 
temperament ; but the observations of a man so experienced as 
he is are entitled certainly to a respectful hearing. 

He goes on to say, " The house itself must be airy, well venti- 
lated, and perfectly clean. The animals must be well curried 
and brushed every day." His stables and their occupants gave 



192 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ample evidence that he practised what he preached. " There 
ought to be one particular person to superintend and pay atten- 
tion to the feeding ; and one of the most important parts of his 
duty is, to ascertain the appetite of every beast. Cows, like 
other animals, will eat less or more ; and they ought to be sup- 
plied according as they require it, being kept rather with an 
appetite, than otherwise. As soon as the animal has eaten its 
food, all refuse should be immediately taken away, and nothing- 
suffered to remain in the stalls before it. The cattle will know 
the hour of feeding as correctly as the clock tells it, and will 
be disappointed and fretted if neglected. This neglect is preju- 
dicial both to milking and fattening. Every farmer who culti- 
vates his land in a proper manner, will have plenty of food for 
his cows in the house, summer and winter, and of various kinds. 
Cows, like other animals, are capricious in their appetites ; they 
will not agree with being constantly confined to the same kind 
of food. No matter how nutritious in itself, there ought to be 
a variety ; a change, if possible, for every feed." This is the 
mode of feeding which, he says, he himself has found eligi- 
ble. '' I give six feeds in the day, summer and winter, beginning 
at 6 o'clock in the morning, and ending at 9 in the evening, 
viz., at 6, at 8, at 12, at 3, at 6, at 9. They get water in 
their stalls at 10 in the morning, and at 5 in the afternoon ; 
they are likewise turned out one hour, from 10 to 11, where they 
exercise, and drink if they choose. The kinds of food I use 
chiefly are the following : In summer, at 6, 1 feed with perennial 
or Italian rye grass and clover ; at 8, with cabbages or leaves ; 
at 12, with cut hay and straw ; [this feed is to prevent the 
action of too much green feed upon them ; a cow in health 
ought never to be purging ; if she is, both milk and flesh are 
running off"; ] at 3, upon vetches; at 6, upon mangel-wurzel 
leaves, rape, cleanings of ditches, or other refuse of the farm or 
garden ; at 9, clover or grass, or this may again be dried feed, 
if the state of the bowels requires it. In winter, at 6, first feed 
with steamed food; at 8, with turnips, raw; at 12, with cut hay 
and straw ; at 3, with mangel-wurzel raw ; at 6, with steamed 
food ; at 9, with hay and straw. Water must be given or 
oflered, and plenty of salt used in the steamed food. This 
mode, after much experience, I have found highly advantageous 
for all my cattle." lie adds, " I have ascertained that when my 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 193 

present farm was in pasture, it pastured eighteen cows in sum- 
mer ; but now it feeds sixteen cows and three horses, all the 
year round, and I have as large a proportion of grain crops on 
the same land as most other people, besides." 

I have thought that these details, all of which came under 
my own observation, would be interesting to my readers ; and I 
will refer to some experiments on a small scale, on the estate of 
Lord Gosford, in the county of Armagh, Ireland, already spoken 
of, under the management of William Blacker, Esq., who may 
be considered as the author of house feeding in Ireland. 

I had the gratification of a most instructive visit with this gen- 
tleman, among several of his small tenants, who every where 
greeted him with a warmth of welcome which showed their 
deep sense of his kindness. Indeed, many of them, through his 
judicious and beneficent agency, had been recovered from a con- 
dition of want, disconragement, suffering, and debt, and placed 
in circumstances of independence, comfort, contentment, and 
improvement ; and I know not who are more to be envied than 
those persons who have it in their power to confer such bene- 
factions, and M^ho are permitted to see the beneficent fruit of 
their labors. 

I shall be excused if I interrupt the coarse of my subject to 
speak of the means by which these changes, which here meet 
the eye and warm the heart, and form such an affecting contrast 
to the indescribably wretched condition of many of the cottiers 
of Ireland, have been brought about. 

The numerous tenantry among whom he was placed, and a 
large proportion of whom were the occupiers of very small hold- 
ings, labored under two great difficulties, — ignorance of the best 
mode, and the want of the means, of cultivating their grounds, — 
difficulties which press heavily upon a great portion of the Irish 
population. The best of all charities is that which helps the 
unfortunate to help themselves. To understand the condition 
of Ireland, — unlike, it is said, that which exists in any other part 
of the civilized world, — it is necessary to go into Ireland. My 
eye never before rested upon, my imagination could scarcely ex- 
aggerate, the state of destitution and degradation, as far as their 
condition was concerned, in which I saw millions of these peopk 
living The whole blame of this condition is not to bo charged, 
as is too often done, upon the landlords. If, as is well known. 

VOL. u 17 



194 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

there are too many landlords who neglect, there are those who 
seek to perform, their duty, and to discharge their high responsi- 
bilities, and who, actuated by an ardent spirit of philanthropy, 
are sincerely anxious to ameliorate the condition of their depend- 
ents, and to raise them from their low estate. But what can be 
done with people who are satisfied to burrow in a mud cabin, 
or a mere hole in the earth, and to marry, and live, and to bring 
children into the world, upon poverty and potatoes ? Mr. Blacker, 
with the cooperation of the nobleman whose estate he manages, 
has effected the most beneficial changes among his tenants, by 
stimulating their pride, by multiplying their wants, by calling 
out their self-respect, by teaching them the best modes of man- 
agement, and assisting them to pursue these modes. 

His first plan was to employ some respectable and skilful 
farmers from Scotland, well qualified to teach, who were to serve 
as agricultural instructors. They were themselves to occupy a 
small farm, on which they were to exhibit an example of the 
best mode of management and cultivation ; and, within a pre- 
scribed district, they were to visit the cottiers and small tenants, 
and instruct them in these improvements, looking after them 
frequently, reporting them, and encouraging them by the promise 
of handsome premiums for superior skill and industry, to be be- 
stowed at the annual agricultural meeting, at the close of the 
year. In addition to this, through his Scotch agents, or by him- 
self, Mr. Blacker offered the tenants aid in the form of seeds, 
artificial manures, improved implements, and sometimes a cow, 
the expense of which was all to be ultimately reimbursed. The 
plan has succeeded admirably. One of the first visits was to a 
small farmer, who had been at one time negligent, addicted to 
intemperance, deeply in debt, and wholly discouraged, and with- 
out even a cow, so important a blessing in a poor man's family. 
His habits were now changed ; he had applied himself most dili- 
gently to the cultivation and improvement of his little farm ; he 
had paid his debts ; he was keeping two or three cows, and now 
felt the pride and wore the port of a man. It would be diffi- 
cult to say what superior benefaction he could have bestowed 
upon such a man ; and the beneficence was gratefully appreci- 
ated ; for there is a chord in the human heart from which the 
touch of disinterested kindness seldom fails to bring a response. 

I will give the returns of some of these small tenants. 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 195 

A. B. has fourteen acres. lie keeps four cows and a horse. 
The sales from the produce of his cows amounted in the year 
to £17, beyond the suppHes of his family. Under the system 
of house feeding, he says he can keep four cows where he could 
keep only one before. Such a place as this, it is clear, should 
not be burdened with a horse. Each acre of his land, he stated, 
gave him a profit of £5. 

C. D. cultivated eight and a half acres, in potatoes, flax, oats, 
turnips, &c. &c. He kept two cows, but had wisely sold his horse. 
He paid £9 15 s. rent, and had cleared, in the previous year, 
£43, exclusive of butter used in his family. His oats were a 
magnificent crop ; and where they had been manured with the 
water in which his flax had been rotted, the beneficial efl"ects 
of the application were most striking. He raised two pigs. 

E. F. occupies nine acres. Had last year three cows : this 
year he is keeping four; sold last year about £40 of produce, 
exclusive of butter. His cows produce about seven pounds of 
butter each per week. 

All this is spade husbandry and house feeding. I shall pro- 
ceed to give some other statements, which did not come under 
my particular observation, but with which Mr. Blacker was kind 
enough to make me acquainted. 

G. H. stated that he had fed his stock of four cows and two 
calves upon one acre and two roods of land * all summer, being 
about one rood and four perches for each cow, after allowing for 
the calves, and had three roods of turnips, and one of rape, for 
winter. His whole occupation amounted to eight acres and 
three roods of land. His stock, of four cows and two calves, he 
stated, late in the autumn, had been fed, through the summer 
and up to that time, upon clover and vetches, on the same piece 
of ground which formerly, in grazing, kept only one cow, and 
that poorly. This man added that he was satisfied that there 
was no way in which land could be made to produce so much, 
or by which it could be brought into such heart, as by the soil- 
ing system, and four-course rotation of crops. He was just 
beginning to feel the benefit of it, his land being now all per- 
fectly clean, every inside ditch levelled, not a spot in the whole 
that was not productive, and not any of it whatever in pasture. 

* I suppose, in these cases, the Irish acre is intended, which, to the English 
statute acre, is as the square of 14 to the square of 11, or as 196 to 121. 



196 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

I. J. states that, when he came to his farm, fom' years ago, he 
could only keep one cow, and two acres of such pasture as it 
afforded was only sufficient to summer-feed her ; that he had 
gradually increased his stock from year to year, until he had 
now three good cows, and a horse, on his eight acres of land, and 
had now more acres manured than he then found roods. 

K. L. states that where formerly he had only two cows, a 
heifer, and a pony, he now had five cows, two heifers, and one 
good horse, upon his sixteen acres, kept on clover and vetches in 
summer, on cabbage in the autumn, and turnips in the winter 
and spring. 

M. N. occupied twenty-three acres of land. His stock was 
seven cows, two heifers, one calf, and two horses, which were 
kept in good condition ; and besides this, he had nine hundred 
stocks of excellent oats, and an acre of flax. 

O. P. occupied six acres of land. Two acres and two roods were 
in potatoes, one acre in turnips, and he produced about thirty 
barrels of oats. He house-fed three cows, three calves, and an 
ass; he made three firkins of butter; he had two pigs; he had 
to support a family of eleven persons ; and yet he had twenty 
barrels of potatoes to sell. 

Q,. R. held four acres, one rood, and twenty perches of land. 
He had two acres of potatoes in arable land, and three roods in 
reclaimed bog, of which he had reclaimed two acres ; he had 
one acre of turnips ; he had ten barrels of oats to sell ; he had made 
three firkins of butter during the summer ; he had house-fed two 
cows and two heifers. He had thirteen in a family to support, 
and he expected to sell ten barrels of potatoes ; had already sold 
three pigs at a profit, after paying their cost, of £5. 

S. T. held five acres of land. He had two acres of potatoes, 
three roods of turnips, twenty perches of flax. He had house- 
fed three cows and a genet. He had made three firkins of but- 
ter, and had twenty-four barrels of oats and fifteen barrels of 
potatoes to sell. 

I do not deem it necessary to multiply these examples, although 
more arc within my reach. I need not point out the conclusions 
to which they lead. Two things, however, deserve particular 
attention. The first is, that none of the product of the land is 
lost or wasted. The second, which rcv^eals the whole secret of 
success, is in the large quantity of manure which is obtained 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING. 197 

upon this system. It is confidently stated that, where every 
thing is well managed and saved, a single cow will furnish ample 
manure, in the course of the year, to be applied to an acre of 
ground. I do not recollect that, in any of the cases which I 
visited, any provision was made for saving the liquid manure in 
a tank, so as to be applied by sprinkling to the land. This, if 
properly done, as may be seen from Mr. Dickenson's example, 
would have greatly increased the resources of these small 
farmers. 

How far the system is applicable in other cases, every farmer 
must determine from the circumstances in which he is placed. 
I have no hesitation in saying that there is no farmer, who keeps 
live stock, to whom the subject is not worthy of attention. Per- 
haps there is no farmer with whom it may not very advan- 
tageously be to a degree applicable. The moving spring of 
every farmer's success is his manure heap ; and how the manure 
heap is to be created and enlarged every one knows. 

The great matter to be considered is, how to obtain a supply 
of succulent food throughout the whole year. With us in the 
United States, the plant of Indian corn, for a part of the season, 
cut green, and as early as it will bear cutting, furnishes the 
richest and most abundant of all provision. It may be sown 
broadcast or in drills, and so as to furnish a succession of feed 
until the frost comes. This advantage cannot be had here. 

The Italian rye grass, which I have already so fully described 
in speaking of Mr. Dickenson's management, is an admirable 
plant for this purpose. In addition to this, there is a species of 
rye, called St. Johri's day rye^ lately introduced here, which 
grows luxuriantly, and comes into a state fit to be repeatedly cut 
very early. I saw this plant cultivated on Mr. Pusey's estate, 
and there brought into most advantageous contrast with the 
common rye, which was sown in the same field. I shall give 
Mr. Pusey's account of it. 

" Some farmers do not approve of rye, for while young it 
gives but little food, and shoots up rapidly to a harsh stalk, which 
stock do not relish. This does not apply to the St. John's day 
rye. This plant, if sown in proper time, and on a suitable soil, 
presents itself to the scythe in a state palatable to horses for full 
three weeks or more. It will grow from six to seven feet high. 
17* 



198 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The time to sow it (in the climate of England) is the 24th of 
June, at all events before July. The condition of the soil must 
not be poor, and the produce will pay for good land. The soil 
needs to be compressed after sowing, if the land be at all light, 
by rolling or sheep treading." 

In June of the following year, the farmer whom I have quoted 
above sent Mr. Pusey an account of his further success in the 
growth of this rye. The stalk was six feet in length, though it 
had not then flowered. He began to soil eight cart horses with 
it on the 13th of May, then three feet high, and four cows a 
week later. Both these kinds of stock ate nearly the whole of 
it with scarcely any waste ; it had then been twenty-two days 
in use, and he expected its eatable state would extend through a 
month. He thinks he should have begun a week earlier, not 
waiting until it was three feet in height. 

Mr. Pusey, whose growing crop I saw, " sowed some in July, 
1843, on some poor, moory soil, without manure ; it was fed off 
in the autumn, and again in the spring, yet produced, on little 
more than a quarter of an acre, thirteen bushels of seed. The 
seed was sown again last year, (1844,) in August, as soon as 
harvested. It produced on a sandy loam very good feed in the 
autumn ; and in this backward spring, (1845,) it realized the 
description given of it, and established its character by covering 
four or five acres with a thick coat of herbage, in which the 
lambs were browsing breast-high, while there was little or no 
other feed in the neighborhood." 

It is said to be called St. John's day rye " because it grows 
so rapidly that, if sown about St. John's day, it will be fit to 
mow green by the middle of September ; and in favorable sea- 
sons, may be fed off" again in November, without preventing 
its giving ample feed the next spring, and a good crop of grain 
at harvest." 

This rye, in Belgium, is deemed inferior to the common rye 
in yield of grain, but " it has evidently two advantages over the 
common rye. It tillers so much as to produce double the quan- 
tity of herbage on the same space of ground. In one field, where 
the two varieties were growing together, the common rye, after 
twice feeding off, became so thin that I ploughed it up, while 
^his new rye covers the ground with its third crop, as with its 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING, 199 

first. It is sweeter than the common rye when young, as is 
shown by its being preferred by the hares and rabbits. Its prin- 
cipal merit is, however, its superior sweetness in advanced growth, 
and the oonsequently longer time during which it remains fit for 
use as spring feed." 

Mr. Baker, a distinguished farmer of Essex, speaks of having 
obtained seed from two difi"erent seedsmen, and having found 
that, for spring feed, one was a fortnight earlier than the 
other, and yielded double the amount of produce. By the use 
of this plant, he says, he is now able to support all his horses 
and neat stock for two or three weeks before his neighbors 
commence. From the middle of April last, (1845,) he has 
been enabled to maintain upwards of forty horses and colts, and 
fifty head of neat stock, the former up to the present time, 
(24th of May,) and the latter until the 14th of this month, almost 
without the assistance of hay. The chief difficulty he had to 
contend with, was, to remedy the great waste occasioned by the 
horses and stock in foddering ; for, as the rye advanced in stem, 
the stock would eat only the most tender portion, and, if tares 
were sown in conjunction, would waste the greater part of the 
rye in the endeavor to extract them while feeding. To remedy 
this, he cut the whole into chaff, and, by the addition of a small 
quantity of hay, and about one half of sweet wheat or oat straw, 
which he gradually diminished as the season advanced, he ob- 
tained a description of food for which, for early use, he knew 
of nothing as an equivalent, in point of cheapness or utility, be- 
sides the advantage of gradually adopting the change from dry 
to green food without risk or inconvenience to the animal. The 
number of acres consumed, to the present time, did not exceed 
nine ; and the land upon which it was grown was already in a 
forward state for turnips. The rye grown by Mr. Baker is un- 
derstood to be different from the St. John's day rye. 

For house feeding, likewise, lucern is sometimes cultivated, 
although not so extensively in England as I had expected to 
have found it. This requires to be sown on rich soil ; broadcast, 
if the land is clean ; but in narrow drills, so as to admit of being 
hoed, if it is likely to be infested with weeds, which, in truth, 
constitute a principal obstacle to its cultivation. It is believed 
there is no more nutritious food to be found for cattle and horses. 



200 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and none from which so large a product can be obtained from 
an acre, save only Indian corn, in a favorable climate and soil. 
It is stated confidently, but perhaps extravagantly, that an acre 
of good lucern will keep four or five horses from May to Octo- 
ber, when cut just as the flower opens. It requires a dry, rich, 
loamy soil. The climate of Scotland is said to be too cold for 
it ; but I have known very good crops of it produced in the 
neighborhood of Boston, New England. Clover — the common 
red clover — furnishes an excellent article for soiling, scarcely in- 
ferior to any thing which can be found ; but its cultivation is too 
familiar for me to enlarge upon it. 

The article mainly depended on in England for soiling, es- 
pecially for horses, is vetches or tares. These furnish a very 
large amount of feed, and there is at least one kind which may 
be cut more than once in a season. Of the vetches which are 
cultivated for the purpose of soiling in England there are two 
kinds ; one, which will bear to be sown in the autumn ; the other, 
which is sown in the spring, to afford late summer or autumn 
feed. As well as I could learn, there is no observable difference 
in them, but that one will endure the winter, and consequently 
will afford early spring feed, and the other kind will not endure 
the winter ; and the general impression is, that these peculiarities 
are the result of cultivation and habit, rather than of original 
constitution, if the term may be so applied. 

After the early and trying part of the season is past, the crops 
of turnips, swedes, mangel-wurzel, and various tribes of cabbage, 
under industrious and good cultivation, will furnish an abundant 
supply of food ; in respect to some of them, first in their leaves, 
and next in their bulbs and roots. Rape is likewise cultivated 
v^ery extensively, especially in Lincolnshire, for the folding and 
feeding of sheep. As far as my observation extended, it is not 
usually cut for sheep ; but a temporary fence is put up round a 
portion of the field, and they are turned in upon it. This being 
eaten, another enclosure is made ; and in this way they succes- 
sively enter upon the different portions of the field. 

That a variety of food is conducive to the health of the ani- 
mals, and to the increase of the milk of the cows, seems well 
established by general opinion and by actual experiment. Dried 
food is much less conducive to milk and to fatness than green ; 



SOILING, OR HOUSE FEEDING, 201 

and the effect of dry straw is to produce almost immediately a 
great diminution of milk. Hay is conducive to health, and to 
jnilk, in proportion to the succulent state in which it has been 
cured, provided, however, it has attained some substantial growth 
before being cut. 

I think it will be interesting to my readers, if I quote here 
from the report to which I have alluded, on a trial of some 
different kinds of food upon cattle, made under the direction of 
the government, and just published by their order. 1 cannot say 
that the report, as a whole, is altogether satisfactory, or that the 
conclusions arrived at are very definite. The remarks, however, 
which I shall quote, are very worthy of attention. 

" That a change of diet is necessary for animals which are 
kept in a confined condition, is proved by the tables accom- 
panying this report in a striking manner ; and the results now 
obtained amply sustain the idea, supported by us some time ago, 
in reference to the dietary of human beings shut up in poor- 
houses and places of confinement. It was then argued that, in 
order to retain the human constitution in a healthy condition, 
variety of food should be properly attended to, and different 
species of diet were suggested as well calculated to supply a 
series of dishes to the poor. In the Asylum for the Houseless 
and in the House of Refuge, at Glasgow, the recommendations 
were followed out, and, according to the report of the treasurer, 
the dinner meals being varied two or three times every week, 
the change in the dietary is much relished by the inmates, and 
may have had some effect in the greater degree of health which 
has been evident among them of late. The analogy subsisting 
between the physical nature of human beings and of many of 
our domestic animals, would lead us to the conclusion, upon 
physiological grounds, that their dietary should be conducted 
upon precisely similar principles. To prove this by exact exper- 
iments, is a point, it will be admitted, of considerable importance 
to the agriculturist, although it may have been, as might be ex- 
pected, surmised by many intelligent observers. Not only, how- 
ever, is vanety of food requisite for an animal in an artificial state, 
— it is found also to be beneficial to one in a condition more akin 
to that of nature ; for it is upon this principle that we are able to 
account for the superior influence of old natural pastures, which 



202 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

consist of a variety of grasses and other plants, over those pas 
tures which are formed of only one grass, in the production of 
fat cattle and good milk cows. To any one who considers 
with attention the experiments which have been detailed, there 
cannot remain a doubt in the mind, that cattle, and especially 
milk cows, in a state of confinement, would be benefited by a 
very frequent and entire change in their food. It might not be 
too much to say, that a daily modification in the dietary of 
such animals would be a sound scientific prescription." 

I have deemed it important to go thus largely into the subject 
of soiling or house feeding, because I think it will enable many 
of the farmers in the United States, especially in the older states, 
to keep three times the amount of stock which they now keep, 
and to very much more advantage with regard to produce and 
profit, and especially to the improvement of their farms, than the 
system which they now pursue. The great means of im- 
proving our farms are in the amount of stock which we keep 
upon them, always premising, however, that that stock, to be 
profitably kept, must be well kept ; and while every farmer loses 
who does not keep all the stock which his farm will carry, he 
perhaps loses still more who keeps more stock than he can keep 
well. But every eff'ort should be made by a good farmer to 
increase the capacities of his farm to their utmost extent ; and 
by the number of cattle and sheep which he can amply provide 
for, may be determined his means of enriching his farm and 
enlarging the profits of his husbandry. 

I foresee two objections that may be argued against the adoption 
of the system of house feeding in the United States — the one, 
the expense of labor ; the other, the trouble of undertaking it 
upon any extended scale. The first is a simple question of 
profit and loss ; if its profits will be more than an equivalent for 
its expenses, the application of any amount of labor under such 
circumstances cannot be reasonably objected to. The trouble 
and care which it may bring with it are no further a reasonable 
objection to its adoption than to every other project of improve- 
ment. No good in life is obtained without its proportionate 
price ; and to men who live by their farms, and therefore have 
an interest in making those farms as productive as possible, as to 
enterprising men engaged in trade or manufactures, it resolves 



CROPS. 203 



itself into the simple question, whether it will prove sufficiently 
remunerative to compensate the labor and attention. The reply 
to this question will of necessity be qualified by many local cir- 
cumstances, and must be left to every farmer's own decision. 



CVI. — CROPS. 

The island of Great Britain produces, of bread crops, wheat, 
oats, barley, and rye ; and perhaps in no other part of the world 
has the cultivation as yet reached a greater degree of perfection. 
I am, however, far from believing that it has attained its highest 
point : and, if the extraordinary crops produced in some parts of 
the country evince what can, the inferior yield in other parts, 
without any ascertainable hinderances of climate or soil, show 
what should, be done. I believe there is no part of the island 
in which wheat may not be successfully cultivated. In the 
north, oats are more cultivated than wheat, and constitute there 
the principal bread of the people at large. Oaten bread, how- 
ever, in that country, is found under certain forms at the tables 
of the rich and of the higher ranks, as well as among the 
lower classes ; and though I consider it altogether inferior to the 
bread of Indian corn, — and such, indeed, is my honest opinion of 
wheat bread also, — yet it is agreeable to the taste, and its uutri- 
tiousness is undoubted. In Ireland, where fine wheat is grown, 
and where also a considerable portion of oatmeal is consumed, 
the food of a large mass of the people is potatoes, and of this 
not always a full supply. 

1. Wheat, however, is to be considered as the standard grain, 
and the great crop of England, upon which the arable farmer 
mainly depends for his money returns from his farm, and for the 
payment of his labor and rent, and to which, therefore, his at- 
tention is constantly and principally directed. 

Of wheats there are great varieties. In the Agricultural Mu- 
seum at Edinburgh, first established by the most commendable 
enterprise of Mr. Lawson, but now the property of the Highland 



204 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and Agricultural Society of Scotland, a vast number of kinds are 
exhibited ; and his account enumerates more than eighty different 
sorts. The common divisions are into bearded or beardless wheats, 
into thin skinned, or white, and hard or flint wheats, or into white 
or red wheats. The botanical distinctions would be of little con- 
sequence to my general readers. The white wheats,or thin skin- 
ned, yield the largest proportion of flour or starch ; the flint wheats 
of gluten, which is the most nutritious part of the wheat. The 
colors white and red are not permanent distinctions, but are con- 
sidered as attributable to the soil in which these two kinds are 
grown ; the white wheat sometimes changing into a red, and the 
red into a white. No advantage would come from my enumerating 
the various kinds cultivated. Every district has its favorite wheat ; 
and it is with wheat as with most other popular favorites — public 
opinion is continually changing. The results, too, with respect 
to the same kind of seed, are different under different cultivation, 
and are likewise materially affected by the season. Different 
markets, likewise, have their preferences for different kinds of 
wheat. The baker wants one kind of flour ; the confectioner 
requires another. I shall presently specify some of the principal 
ones cultivated. The analysis of different wheats has shown a 
remarkable difference in the quantity of gluten in each ; but it 
probably will be found that this more depends upon the soil and 
the species of manure applied, than upon any peculiarity in the 
seed itself.* 



* " A sack of Italian, Sicilian, or Russian (Odessa) flour, -when tough in 
kneading, or, according to the baker, '■full of proofs or gluten, takes up, in con- 
sequence, from five to six gallons more water than a similar quantity of British 
flour, and makes, in consequence, from four to six more quartern loaves. When 
the wheat, in England, is not well harvested, it is frequently necessary, in order to 
make a loaf ' which will stand up in the oven,' and sell, to mix with it flours of 
tlie above description. Starch is perfectly white, while albumen, the same sub- 
stance as white of egg, is of a grayish color ; and gluten, by exposure to air, 
becomes brown. The flours called fines and erirafines are made from Dantzic 
wheats, when to be had. From their whiter color, and their taking up, in the for- 
mation of bread, less water than wheats from the south, they must contain more 
starch and less gluten and albumen. Our British wheats, used also for fines and 
extras, in which the former is known to abound, are also whiter ; and, as articles 
of luxury, it is true that tlie Avhiter wheats bear a higher price. But flours from 
tlie south, from containing more gluten, are browner, and, seeming to be loss well 
dressed than they are, and to contain more bran than they do, sell at a lower price : 
still they go farther, and make a more wholesome and nutritious bread. The Intel- 



CROPS. 205 

There is another distinction of wheats — into autumn, or those 
which are sown in the autumn, and spring wheats, those which 
are sown in the spring. But this is undoubtedly an accidental 
and not a permanent or constitutional distinction. With care in 
the selection of the seed earliest ripe, after a succession of seasons, 
what was winter wheat may be converted into spring wheat ; 
and by sowing spring wheat in the autumn, its season of ripen- 
ing will be retarded, and after a while it will take its place 
among winter wheats.* 

Of the average yield of wheat per acre throughout the knig- 
dom, it is difficult to speak with any confidence, as no exact 
returns are collected, and conclusions of this sort must be almost 
wholly conjectural. Nor do I see what useful lesson is to be 
learned from combining the results of poor and negligent with 
those of the most liberal and skilful cultivation, and striking a 
general average between them, except to afford an excuse or pal- 
liative for the neglect and indolence of those who do not culti- 
vate their lands as well as they might. What we require to 
know is, what can be done ; and this is determined beyond all 



ligent laborer who bakes his own bread from seconds knows this well ; it keeps 
him better up to his work than whiter flours." — JV. H. Hyclt, Esq., Royal 
^Agricultural Journal, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 144. 

" Proust found French wheat to contain 12.5 per cent, of gluten ; Vogel found 
that the Bavarian contained 24 per cent; Davy obtained 19 per cent, from winter, 
and 24 from summer, wheat ; from Sicilian, 21, and from Barbary wheat, 19 per 
cent. The meal of Alsace wheat contains, according to Boussingault, 17.3 
per cent of gluten ; that of wheat grown in the ' Jardin des Plantes,'' 26.7 ; and 
that of winter wheat, 3.33 per cent. An increase of animal manure gives rise, 
not only to an increase in the number of seeds, but also to a most remarkable 
difference in the proportion of the substances containing nitrogen, such as the 
gluten which tliey contain. One hundred parts of wheat grown on a soil 
manured with cow-dung (a manure containing the smallest quantity of nitrogen) 
afforded only 11.95 parts of gluten, and 64.34 parts of amylin, or starch, while 
the same quantity grown on a soil manured with human urine yielded the maxi- 
mum of gluten, namely, 35.1 per cent." — Liehig, p. 94. 

* We must guard here against a mistake which, I know, has been made, and 
with much loss and vexation. The Whittington wheat is called a spring wheat, 
but it must be sowed in February. We on the other side of the water, hearing 
of its excellent qualities, and supposing it to be a spring Avheat in our sense of the 
term, sowed it in the last of March and in April, and it did not come into head, as the 
season was too short Many persons blamed the seedsmen for liaving deceived 
tlicni in soiling them a winter for a spring wheat ; but tlie mistake arose, as eiTors 
and faults oflen arise, from a different use of the terms in tlie two countries. 
VOL. II. 18 



206 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

question when we learn what has been done. No good cuUivator 
should willingly stop short of what has been reached by others, 
nor should even this satisfy him, if there is a possibility of going 
beyond it. 

In statistical works, 26 bushels are put down as the average 
yield of wheat through the kingdom ; a few years since, 18 
bushels were named as the customary yield. This would argue 
a very great improvement. There are not a few who even 
now insist that 14 bushels are the average product, taking the 
whole kingdom together. This seems to me much too low. 
Among all the farms which I have visited, I have not found a 
single farmer who has rated his product so low. On the other 
hand, under good cultivation, I have scarcely ever found it less 
than 32 bushels. I have very frequently found it full 40 
bushels. In the fens of Lincolnshire, on the redeemed land, 
I am informed, on the best authority, that the yield is very often 
from 7 to 8 quarters, that is, from 56 to 64 bushels per acre. A 
much higher amount than this has been named. One of the 
best farmers in the kingdom, in the county of Berks, assured me 
that the crop upon his large farm, in 1844-5, averaged 56 bushels 
to the acre ; and it is well attested that a crop grown in Norfolk 
county, in the same year, produced 1 1 quarters 2 bushels 3 pecks 
per acre, that is to say, 90 bushels 3 pecks per acre — the largest 
crop on record, within my knowledge. 

When I received from most credible authority the account of 
the last crop, so very extraordinary as it is, I felt the strongest 
desire to ascertain, if possible, by what means it was pro- 
duced, and especially whether there was any peculiarity in the 
soil, to which so great a yield was to be ascribed. This desire 
was felt as strongly by other members of the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society ; and they directed the very eminent chemist of 
the society. Professor Playfair, to make an analysis of the soil 
and report it. I shall give my readers this report at large, which 
has been published in their Journal. 

Two portions of the soil — one of the surface, the other of the 
subsoil — were placed in his hands. " I place," he says, " for the 
information of the council, the analysis in two forms, one of 
these giving the actual statement of the analysis, the other indi- 
cating the probable method in which the ingredients are asso- 
ciated in the soil. 



CROPS. 



207 



" 1. Surface Soil 
III \^Q pni'ts as actually found. 
Organic matter, .... 2.43 
Hydrate water, .... 2.60 
Carbonic acid, . 0.92 

Sulphuric acid, . 0.09 

Phosphoric acid, . . . 0.38 

Silicic acid and silica, . . 81.26 
Peroxide of iron, .... 3.41 

Alumina, 3.58 

Lime, 1.28 

Magnesia, 1.12 

Potash, 0.80 

Soda, 1.50 

Chlorine, a trace. 

Loss on analysis, .... 0.63 



100.00 



In \Q{S parts as contained in the soil- 
Organic matter, .... 2.43 

Hydrate water, 2.60 

Silica and silicic acid, . . 78.27 
Peroxide of iron, .... 3.41 
Carbonate of lime, . . . 2.10 
Sulphate of lime, .... 0.15 
Phosphate of lime, (as in 

bones,) 0.08 

Phosphate of magnesia, . . 0.58 
Magnesia, (probably as a sil- 
icate,) 0.88 

Alumina, (probably as a sil- 
icate,) 3.58 

Silicate of potash, .... 1.58 
Silicate of soda, .... 3.71 
Chlorine, (in combination as 

salt,) a trace. 

Loss on analysis, .... 0.63 

100.00 



2. Subsoil. 



In 100 j;ar^5 as actually found. 
Organic matters free from 

ammonia, 1.20 

Hydrate water, .... 2.60f 

Carbonic acid, .... 0.04 

Silica, 82.55 

Peroxide of iron, .... 3.70 

Lime, 0.69 

Magnesia, 1.55 

Alumina, 4.48 

Potash, 0.60 

Soda, 1.10 

Chlorine, 1.26 

Sulphuric acid, .... 0.16 
Phosphoric acid, ... a trace. 

Loss on analysis, .... 0.07 



100.00 



In 100 parts as contained in the soil. 
Organic matters free from 

ammonia, 1.20 

Hydrate water, 2.60 

Silica and silicic acid, . . 81.96 
Peroxide of iron, .... 3.70 
Carbonate of lime, . . . 0.09 
Lime, (probably as a silicate,) 0.58 
Magnesia, (probably as a sili- 
cate,) 1.55 

Alumina, (principally as a sili- 
cate,) 4.48 

Sulphate of lime, .... 0.27 
Chloride of sodium, . . . 2.08 
Silicate of potash, .... 1.19 
Phosphoric acid, . a mere trace. 
Loss on analysis, .... 0.30 

100.00 



* Water which is not driven off at the boiling point, 212°. 

f Water not expelled by long-continued exposure to a water bath. 



208 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

" The subsoil may be viewed as representing the soil iu its 
natural condition, and, as such, is rich in every constituent essen- 
tial to fertility, with the exception of phosphoric acid, of which 
substance scarcely a trace could be detected. All the iron in the 
soil exists in the state of peroxide, so that the plants may appro- 
priate its constituents without injury. The presence of so much 
common salt in the subsoil is only explicable on the supposition 
that it has been washed by the rains from the upper to the lower 
soil, for we find it absent, except as a trace from the surface soil. 
The vicinity of the soil to the sea explains the origin of the 
salt." 

" The upper soil has obviously been improved by manure 
containing phosphates, and perhaps also silicates. I regret 
that no information on this point accompanied the letter from 
the secretary of the Statham Farmer's Club. The soils, from 
the presence of the alkalies and the alkaline earths, and of all the 
proper acids in the subsoil, are admirably calculated to furnish 
plants with their proper food." 

I give this account of the soil, upon which this extraordinary 
crop was produced, from a gentleman truly eminent for his sci- 
ence, with feelings of no little discouragement, as showing, in a 
case where the curiosity was most reasonable and intense to get 
at the secret of this remarkable success, and where chemical 
analysis seems to have done its best, that we are still in as much 
darkness as ever. His conjecture how the ingredients were 
probably mixed in the soil, as appears from the second part of 
each table ; his supposition, in the absence of all information on 
the subject, that phosphates, and perhaps silicates, may have been 
supplied in the manure : the utter want of the phosphates in the 
soil, deemed so essential to vegetation and to the growth of a grain 
crop; and the impossibility, which I think every farmer must 
feel, of deducing from the result any practical conclusion what- 
ever, — are circumstances in the case which can scarcely escape 
observation, and which I submit to the judgment of my readers 
without comment. 

That, under any circumstances, we can command a crop, or 
insure any given amount, need not be said; but the extraordinary 
pains taken here in the preparation of the land and the culture 
of the crop are followed with all tlic success wliich is to be 
expected. I have a great many returns of 32 bushels and 



CROPS. 209 

40 bushels produced on an acre ; and I am strongly inclined 
to believe that the average of good cultivation, in ordinary- 
seasons, is seldom less than 32 bushels per acre. The product 
of good cultivation should be considered therefore as the 
standard crop, without reducing it by the much smaller crops 
of those who either cultivate negligently, or manure sparingly, 
or suffer their crops to be stifled with weeds. 

In an experiment carefully made by a distinguished farmer * in 
Northamptonshire, who has given to the world, in a plain and 
practical manner, the results of his agricultural experience, the 
products per acre of six different kinds of wheat sown were 
as follows : — 

The Essex brown yielded at the rate of 40 bush. ; 64 lbs. per bush. 

Surrey white, 36 " 64 " " " 

Brown, (called clover,) . . .40 " 63^" " " 

Snow-drop white, 39 " 63 " " " 

Burwell brown, 45 " 63 " " " 

Whittington white, .... 38 " 62 " " « 

Here were six different kinds, of which it must be admitted 
the yield was large, and shows what may be done. 

In an experiment made by W. Miles, Esq., M. P., the produce, 
per acre, of sound wheat was 48 bushels ; 42 bushels 2 pecks ; 
47 bushels ; 35 bushels 3 pecks ; 49 bushels. 

The crops on a farm of P. Pusey, Esq. were, on one acre, at 
the rate of 37f bushels ; on another, 45J bushels ; on another, 
47^ bushels. " This, it will be remarked, was not a garden ex- 
periment, but applies to a whole field of wheat, and the amount 
was given by the occupier of the land." 

W. L. Kidd, M. D., of Armagh, Ireland, informed me that he 
obtained at the rate of 50 bushels of 62 lbs., or about 28 cwt., 
per acre, and that there were persons in the neighborhood whose 
crops were still larger. The wheat was red wheat ; the quality 
such as to command the highest price. The soil was a stiff 
clay recumbent on limestone. 

Mr. Theadstow, of Booth, near Liverpool, informs me, that 
in 1844-5, on a piece of land less than a statute acre, he pro- 

* C. Hillyard, Esq., Thorpelands. 
18* 



210 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

duced 64 bushels of wheat of 70 pounds the bushel. I 
will subjoin his statement in this case. " The soil is very 
light, consisting of a great portion of sand, and lying close to 
the sea-shore. The land, the previous year, had been trenched 
to the depth of about three feet, by hand labor, and well manured 
with horse and cow manure, and planted with potatoes. When 
the wheat was sown, the ordinary mode of cultivation was pur- 
sued. Something short of two bushels of white Dantzic wheat 
was sown. The seed had been produced on land of a heavier 
nature than that on which it was sown here. The mode of 
sowing was broadcast ; the time of sowing, the 1st of December. 
This is a mode of cultivation adopted generally on my farm, — 
universally with vegetables, — and produces sometimes uncom- 
mon roots. Some of the cabbages, which I have weighed, 
weighed 45 lbs. each." In some experiments made in Gloucester- 
shire, the products were as follows, per acre, of good wheat : — 

Brown's white prolific, 48 bush. 3 pecks ; weight, 62 lbs. per bush. 

" red prolific, . 46 " 2 '' " 60^" 

Whittington white, . 48 ''.... '' 59 " 
Old Herts white, . . 46 " . . . . » 61 " 
Golden drop red, .. 49 '•'.... " 61^ " 
Creeping wheat, (red,) 46 " 1 peck; " 62^" 

The above were planted on a gravelly loam, (clover lay,) in a 
high state of cultivation. 

In the same county, in another case, the products were as sub- 
joined. Cobham wheat, per acre, 42 bushels ; Brown's white 
Chevalier, 44 bushels ; yellow Chevalier, 36 bushels ; Whitting- 
ton white, 38i bushels ; Hertfordshire white, 39 bushels ; Golden 
drop, 40 bushels. 

The above were grown after peas, which is considered a bad 
preparation for wheat. 

In Worcestershire, a crop of wheat, in 1843-4, was at the 
rate of 45 bushels to the acre ; and as much was expected the 
succeeding season. It was of a kind called Burletta wheat, and 
was sown by drill at the rate of two busliels per acre. 

In another part of Worcestershire, in 1844-5, on 130 acres, the 
crop was nearly 47 bushels per acre, and the sample represented 
as excellent. 



CROPS, 211 

These are remarkable facts, and well worthy the attention of 
the farmers. 

Wheat is sometimes grown here upon a summer or naked 
fallow, especially where the land is much infested with weeds ; 
but naked fallows are well nigh exploded in any improved sys- 
tem of English husbandry. Wheat generally comes once in a 
four years' rotation ; sometimes twice in live years, and in some 
cases twice in seven years ; in some every alternate year, beans 
forming the intermediate crop. The latter course, for sixteen 
years, has been the practice of an eminent farmer in Norfolk, 
whose admirably-managed farm I had the pleasure of visiting. 
The land subjected to this treatment is a deep rich alluvion, 
formed from the deposits under the sea, and the beans are most 
thoroughly manured. 

The preparation of the land for wheat is made with extraor- 
dinary pains. The crop preceding it is usually turnips, or some 
green esculent, which is consumed by sheep upon the land. 
The turnips are of course most amply manured, and are gener- 
ally cultivated in drills. When the season for sowing wheat 
arrives, these drills are opened by the plough, and the decom- 
posed manure very thoroughly distributed. It is considered bad 
husbandry to apply green manure, or manure of any kind, except- 
ing from the folding of sheep upon it, to the land, the year the 
wheat is to be sown ; but the result is always better, when the 
sheep so folded, besides the turnips or other green feed with 
which they are supplied, are liberally furnished with oil cake. 
One of the most skilful farmers in Lincolnshire, who, by a suc- 
cessful husbandry, has risen from small beginnings to wealth, and 
has established in comfort several sons upon farms in his vicinity, 
ascribes his success wholly to the liberal use of oil cake for his 
stock, considering it of the highest value in enriching his ma- 
nure. I had the pleasure of witnessing the most ample evidences 
of his good husbandry. This system of enriching land by 
folding sheep upon it in movable folds — a custom long known 
in England — might in many instances be adopted in the North- 
ern United States, especially when the market for mutton is im- 
proved. This, I think — after carefully watching its progress for 
some years past — it is destined to be ; especially when our breeds 
of sheep, grown for this express object, are improved. Here 
mutton may be considered as the favorite dish with all classes 



212 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

who consume meat, and is the principal meat to be found in the 
markets, where it is exhibited in extraordinary perfection. 

The soil preferred for wheat is a strong soil, with a large pro- 
portion of clay ; but experience has, of late years, contrary to 
early and strong prejudices, determined that even the light and 
loamy soils are capable of bearing heavy crops of wheat, pro- 
vided they can be sufficiently consolidated. This is done often 
by driving sheep over the land after sowing, and by an imple- 
ment which I shall presently describe, called a. presser. 

The first process is, thoroughly to clean the land from weeds 
and rubbish ; but the green crop previously cultivated, if it has 
been properly managed, will have done much towards this. The 
twitch grass [triticum, repens) abounds in the lands here to a 
most extraordinary extent, and this is raked out and pulled out, 
and generally piled on the land and burnt, and the ashes spread. 
vSome persons adopt the method of mixing the piles of it with 
quicklime, and thus forming an enriching compost for their land. 
Others carry it into their barn-yard, to be trodden under the feet 
of the cattle, and to absorb the liquid of the yard. 

But wheat is often sown after clover, -or upon what is called a 
clover lay ; the first crop in the course being turnips, the second 
barley, the third clover ; if cut the first year for hay, then de- 
pastured with sheep the second ; or otherwise fed and ploughed 
in, and the wheat sown on the inverted sward, and the land not 
harrowed so deeply as to tear it to pieces. When the clover is 
designed to stand only one year, it is mowed and made into hay in 
June, and then sheep are folded upon it ; and in this way they 
go over the field twice before it is ploughed for sowing. It is 
deemed of great importance, in this case, that the soil should be 
in as compact a state as possible, and a heavy roller is passed over 
it. The greatest stress is laid upon this matter of consolidating 
the soil, where it is of a light or spongy character ; and in some 
soils the ground is simply harrowed, where the preceding crop 
allows of such a process, or otherwise ploughed not more than 
three or four inches in depth. 

An instrument much used for consolidating the soil, and very 
much approv^ed of by those who use it, is called a scam-prcsser. 
This implement passes over the land in the direction of the fur- 
row, and it forms on the furrows two deep drills at a time, the 
two rollers being eight or nine inches apart, and the blade of the 



CROPS. 



213 



roller, if so it may be called, or the riin, being \ / thin at the 
edge, and growing wider above the edge, thus, \ / , and form- 
ing, as it revolves, two fmTows, hardened by its weight, into which 
the grain drops as it is sown ; and when it comes up, it appears as 
if it had been regularly sown in drills of eight or nine inches apart, 
according to the width of the revolving presses from each other. 
" The seam-presser is, in fact, an abstract of a drill-roller, con- 
sisting of but two cylinders of cast iron, which, following the 
plough in the furrows, press and roll down the newly turned-up 
earth." 

Seam-Presser. 




On heavy or clay soils much more work is rendered necessary 
to bring them into condition. The first of all requisites is, that 
the land should be thoroughly drained or freed from wet. In all 
cases of heavy land, it has been the custom to throw the field up 
into beds, or, as they are here called, stitches, with an open fur- 
row between them. In many cases which I have seen, these are 
even less than six feet wide ; and wherever they are made by every 
sixth furrow or every eighth furrow, it is obvious that every acre 
in six, or every acre in eight, is lost ; for nothing grows in the 
intermediate drains. The practice of cultivating in beds or 
stitches is, I may say, almost universal throughout England and 
Scotland ; in general, however, these beds are from three to six 
yards wide ; on dry lands, more than this. Since the introduc- 
tion of the Deanston system of thorough-draining and subsoil- 
ing, it has been shown that they are not at all necessary for carry- 



214 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



ing off the wetness of the land ; and that on a perfectly flat sur- 
face, which has been drained and subsoiled in an effectual man- 
ner, all the water falling upon the surface, will, by a direct descent 
into the ground, find its way to the drains. In this way the loss 
of land is prevented, and the condition of the land over the 
field is more equal ; for the practice of forming beds or stitches 
by continually turning the furrow towards the centre of the ridge, 
is to rob the part of the land nearest the furrow ; and the plants 
growing near the margin of the furrows are always inferior to 
those upon the centre of the ridge. Under these circumstances, 
the only consideration upon which these stitches can be recom- 
mended is, that they assist the sower and the reaper in the meas- 
urement of their work. 

Another instrument is used on hard clay soils, — which often 
remain after ploughing, and even harrowing, quite lumpy, — called 
a clod-crusher, which not only reduces these lumps to fine- 
ness, but serves likewise to consolidate the soil. It can only be 
applied with advantage where the lands are dry and the clods 
hard. 

CrosskiWs Patent Clod-Crusher. 




^- Clod- Crusher. — This valuable implement is composed of 
a series of iron rings, with notched edges set apart from each 
other about three or four inches. Small crossbars, or knives, are 
placed at frequent intervals on the faces of these, and near their 
outer notched rims, so as to intersect every portion of land ovei 
which it passes. Its construction, combined with its great 
weight, renders it very effective for the purpose wliich its name 



CHOPS. 215 

denotes. It has been aptly said to be ' a roll and a harrow 
combined.' Its use has been fonnd to prevent the ravages of the 
wire-worm — no small recommendation to it." 

" Further improvements have been made in its construction, 
the principal features of which consist in an improved form of 
tooth, for breaking, rather than grinding, the clods ; and in ar- 
ranging for each cylinder independently to revolve upon its own 
axis — an advantage which not only increases its efficiency, but 
materially lessens the power required for its draught." 

" The roller is an implement which requires more than usual 
judgment as to the time of its use ; and this remark applies with 
increased force to the one under consideration." 

Perhaps there is no agricultural implement in use in England, 
at the present time, save only a plough, that is so much ap- 
proved of by practical farmers as this clod-crusher. It is used 
sometimes before sowing, to get the land into condition and pro- 
duce a fine tilth. It is used, likewise, after the plant has come 
up, to consolidate the land and fix the roots of the plant; and 
it is used also with much advantage on the wheat, in the spring. 
It has proved of very great efficacy in the destruction of the 
wire-worm, frequently at once arresting its ravages in a wheat 
field. It is used likewise with great advantage upon light soils, 
in consolidating them, and as a substitute for the treading of the 
wheat-ground by sheep ; for which purpose, when they are 
used, it is considered, in most cases, very much to their injury. 
The implement is heavy, and is generally drawn by three 
horses. 

The quantity of seed to be sown has been matter of much 
discussion and experiment. The amount, with different farmers, 
varies from three pecks to three bushels per acre ; and some 
persons contend for four and even five bushels. The saving 
of two, or even of one, bushel of seed per acre, upon the whole 
extent of land cultivated throughout the kingdom, would be 
indeed an immense saving. The saving in seed of two bushels, 
to a farmer who cultivates his fifty or his hundred acres of wheat, 
would certainly deserve much consideration ; but if this saving 
is to be made at the loss or diminished product of three or five 
bushels in the crop, it would prove a kind of economy not 
much to be commended. Among the various conflicting state- 
ments which have been made to me on this subject, and which 



216 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

have been publicly reported, it is exceedingly difficult to arrive 
at any satisfactory conclusion. A very eminent Scotch farmer, 
of large experience, says that, " in some seasons, a moderately 
thin plant — that is to say, a small mimber of the young plants 
of wheat standing upon a given space of ground — is found to 
be advantageous both to quantity and quality of grain, and in 
others highly injurious." 

Mr. Davis, of Croydon, to whom I have before referred, claims, 
fiom a sowing of three pecks to the acre, to produce an average 
crop of forty bushels to the acre. The last season, on visiting his 
farm, though the straw was of a very large size, and the heads long 
and full, it seemed to me impossible that it should have pro- 
duced even thirty bushels per acre ; and much of it was certainly 
extremely foul with weeds. I regret that, though I have at- 
tempted, I have been unable to ascertain the actual yield ; and I 
am quite ready to admit that one is very liable to err in judgment 
upon such a crop, not making proper allowance for the length 
of the heads, which was quite remarkable. 

The experiments of Mr. Barclay, M. P., given in the 6th volume 
of the Journal of the Agricultural Society, seem to go strongly 
against the thin sov/ing of wheat. 

2J bushels of seed drilled, 9 in. apart, gave 37 bushels per acre. 

J a u u a JO li ii ic 05 " u cc 

1 " " '•' dibbled, 12 " " " 31 " " " 

J« a a a a n a a a Qir a n u 

2^ " " " sown broadcast, . . " 40 " " " 

The value of the grain, as estimated by the miller, was 3 d. 
more per bushel, in the first and last case, than in the others, and 
the straw, in the last case, was considerably more, in quantity and 
value, than in either of the former. 

In an experiment which I myself saw upon a very small 
scale, wheat, dibbled at the rate of six quarts to the acre, pro- 
duced at the rate of seventy bushels to the acre. 

In some experiments reported by W. Miles, Esq., M. P., made 
at his beautiful farm at King's Weston, near Bristol, the yield of 
the drilled wheats, at two bushels, and one bushel three pecks, 
per acre, was very much superior to those dibbled at two pecks 
and one quart per acre. 



CROPS. 



217 



The wheats produced as follows : — 
Drilled Wheats, 



No. 


Quantity of Seed 
per Acre. 


Product in Good Wheat. 


Product in Tail or Imperfect 
Wlieat. 


1. 


2 bushels. 


48 bushels 


6 pecks. 


7 bushels 2 pecks. 


2. 


2 


42 " 


2 " 


4 '' " 


3. 


2 " 


47 " 


" 


7 u 1 <i 


4. 


2 


35 " 


3 " 


4 " 3 '' 


5. 


2 


49 " 


" 


5 '' '• 


6. 


If - 


34 " 


2 " 


2 " 2 " 







Dibbled Wheats. 




No. 


Quantity of Seed 
per Acre. 


Product in Good Wheat. 


Product in Tail or Imperfect 
Wheat. 


1. 

2. 
3. 
4. 


2 pecks. 
2 " Iqt. 
2 '' 1 '' 
2 " 1 '' 


21 bushels 3 pecks. 
30 " 2 " 
19 " 1 " 
34 " 1 '• 


3 bushels pecks. 

4 u I u 

2 " 3 " 
6 '' 1 '^ 



Mr. Miles's remarks, subjoined to this statement; are Avell worth 
repeating. 

'•Notwithstanding the dibbling in this trial must be considered, 
as far as regards Nos. 2 and 4, a failure, yet I cannot but state 
mj^ thorough conviction, that upon light, flat land, free from stones, 
this system ought to be universally adopted. I should, however, 
recommend not less than a bushel to be dibbled to an acre, and 
that the process should take place earlier in the season, as when, 
from the quantity of grain grown, there cannot be a superabun- 
dance of plant, it is of great moment that it should be fully es- 
tablished before the alternations of frost and thaw commence. 
The tillering of the plants is extraordinary, as well as the strength 
of the straw ; and what is saved in seed may be most beneficially 
applied to keeping the land perfectly clean, v/ith advantage to 
the laborer and certain profit to the cultivator. If, indeed, we 
take two instances of the same species of corn from the above 
tabular results, we cannot fail to be struck with the much greater 
return from the small than from the large quantity sown ; for 
instance, I find that No. 2, drilled at two bushels per acre, pro- 
duced forty-six bushels two pecks ; whilst No. 1, dibbled at two 

VOL. II. 19 



218 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

pecks per acre, gave — say, twenty-five bushels per acre. Two 
pecks of seed, however, were only tried in the latter, whilst four 
times that quantity was used in the former case ; proportionally, 
therefore, instead of forty-six bushels two pecks, it should have 
given one hundred bushels. I throw out these hints for serious 
consideration, as, without doubt, such a saving of seed as the 
general introduction of the dibbling machine would produce 
must be esteemed of national importance." 

These are, certainly, very remarkable results ; yet Mr. Miles 
gives, in the same paper, an account from a book of husbandry 
written some years since, in which an experiment is detailed of 
sowing ten pounds to the acre, and twenty pounds to the acre, in 
which the advantage appears to have been greatly in favor of the 
thin sowing. In Mr. Miles's case, a good many of the wheat 
plants were destroyed by the frost. In the thickly-sown, a loss 
could be afforded, as a sufficiency of plants would remain for a 
crop ; in the thinly-dibbled wheats, there was no such reserve to 
fall back upon, and the loss was fatal. 

In this matter, many things are to be considered. Some kinds 
of wheat tiller much more than others; that is, a single plant of 
one kind of wheat will throw out more shoots than a plant of 
another kind. The time of sowing is a material point. The 
earlier sown wheat has much more time to thicken, and throw 
out bearing shoots, than late sown wheats. The condition of 
the land, likewise, is to be considered. Highly-enriched and 
manured land will nourish more plants than that which is 
poor and scantily manured. The state of the land, in the next 
place, as it respects v/eeds, must be taken into view. On land 
which is foul, thin sowing will give an opportunity for the weeds 
to spread themselves, very much to the disadvantage of the crop. 

I have already treated this subject, to some extent, in my second 
report, to which I must refer my readers. I cannot help think- 
ing that, with early sowing upon well-manured and well-cleaned 
land, and the faithful hoeing of the crop, so as to keep it free 
from weeds, a much less quantity of seed than what is usually 
applied might be safely and strongly recommended. But, as 
these favorable circumstances cannot always be secured, certainly, 
in ordinary cases, a liberal allowance of seed is to be advised. 
The only saving to be calculntcd upon, in this matter, is in the 
(quantity of seed : ns it df>rs not appenr, from nuy oxpcrnncnts 



CROPS. 219 

which have been reported, or which have come under my notice, 
that the crop has, in any case, been lessened by too much seed. 

This subject is, certainly, one of great importance. The 
farmer, who has most strongly advocated thin sowing, or a great 
reduction of the usual quantity of seed, from a letter which I have 
recently received from him, remains confident of the soundness 
of his views. On the other hand, the opinion of another emi- 
nent practical farmer is, " that these new doctrines are calculated 
to do greater and more extensive mischief, not only to the 
growers but to the consumers of corn, than any other theory he 
ever remembered to have been broached." 

In some experiments given in the able report on Norfolk 
farming, in the Royal Society's Journal, it appears that wheat 
sown at the rate of ten and a half pecks per acre produced nearly 
two bushels per acre more when sown in 7 inch than when sown 
in 9 inch drills. In another case, there were three and a half 
bushels in favor of the 7 inches. In another case, wheat drilled at 
4^ inches exceeded 9 inches by nearly two bushels, and 7 inches 
exceeded 9 by eleven pecks and three pints. 

In another experiment, 

8 pks. seed produced more than 7i pks. by 5 pks. 14 pts. per acre. 

Q a u u li li a u (( n (i q a u cc 

\Q (i u a a i'. i: u a j a a u h a 

Wl. << '' " " <' <• " " J^2 " 6 " " '• 

121 •' " " " " " '• " 14 " 12 " " '■ 

These statements do not determine the case, but they are 
strongly entitled to consideration. It would be wrong, however, 
not to state that, in a subsequent experiment of this same farmer, 
the difference betv/cen sowing eight pecks or twelve pecks, 
after deducting the seed, was only a few quarts. Thus, 

8 pks. of seed produced at the rate of 39 bushels 2 pks. 2 qts. 
12 " " '< '• " << ii ii 4Q li 

And in another case, three bushels of seed actually produced 
less than two bushels and a peck. Thus, 

9 pecks of seed produced 40 bushels 2 pecks 2 quarts. 

12 " '^ " " 40 " 



220 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

It is admitted that crops standing thickly ripen the soonest ; 
and tlie grain produced by them is said to be of a superior qual- 
ity to that which comes from thinly-sowed crops. 

On Lord Leicester's estate, in Norfolk, (who, more than any 
other man in the annals of English agriculture, distinguished 
himself for his successful husbandry,) the practice was to sow three 
bushels per acre. On Mr. Dixon's farm, in Kent, whose crops 
are said to average forty-two bushels per acre, the custom is to 
sow two and a half, and sometimes nearly three, bushels per acre. 

The time of sowing wheat in England admits of a long range, 
from the middle of September until December, and sometimes 
even into February. Where circumstances favor it, an early 
sowing is preferred ; and very forward wheats are fed down, in 
the spring, by sheep, which are folded upon them. In cases 
where a crop, to be followed by wheat, is to be used upon the 
ground, the wheat is not sowed until that crop is fed off; or 
where wheat follows potatoes, the sowing is carried forward 
far into the season. 

Wheat follows turnips, mangel-wurzel, carrots, potatoes, and 
clover. The last is universally approved. Mustard is likewise 
sown, as a preparation for wheat, sometimes at the rate of seven, 
and sometimes at the rate of sixteen, pounds to the acre, to be 
fed off by sheep, or otherwise to be covered in as a green dress- 
ing. A matter is stated as a fact in this case, which deserves 
attention ; that the white mustard will not remain in the soil 
after being once ploughed up ; that the black can hardly be 
eradicated, but has been known to remain in the soil for ages. 
We must be cautions what guests we entertain. 

I have already said that, in a rotation of crops, only one out 
of the four is manured, and that green barn manure is never 
applied to the wheat crops. But the wheat crop cannot be said 
to be not manured, for the folding of sheep upon the ground, by 
their consumption of the green crops, furnishes a most effectual 
manuring. Besides this, artificial or saline manures are applied 
to the crop, and guano has been used with great snccess. The 
nitrates have mainly served to increase the amount of straw, but 
not of grain ; and although some experiments seem to have pro- 
duced a great increase of grain from their use, yet they are not 
very often applied. I have, however, the assurance of one exten- 
sive farmer of his success in the use of the nitrate of soda when 



cKOPs. 221 

applied to oats upon a clay soil, increasing the crop in the propor- 
tion of 12 to 5, and this in repeated trials. I regret that I could 
obtain from him no further and no more exact particulars. There 
are many instances given, and some from farmers with whom I 
have the pleasure of an acquaintance, of the very successful appli- 
cation of nitrate of soda to wheat ; yet, in spite of these, it is not 
very extensively used, and its application is viewed with great 
distrust. Further, and more exact, and longer-continued experi- 
ments are greatly to be desired.* 

There are three modes of sowing wheat — the first, broadcast ; 
the second, by drilling ; the third, by dibbling. The last two 
methods are generally done by machines ; the last not always, 
however ; unless women and children, who drop the grains in the 
hole made by a dibble of the most simple construction, are to be 
considered as machines, and the human hand the most perfect of 
its parts. Drilling and dibbling are methods certainly to be [-re- 
ferred, as the seed is more evenly sown, and an opportunity is 
offered of hoeing and weeding the crop, which is here most 
carefully done, and undoubtedly to great advantage. When 
wheat is drilled, likewise, there is an opportunity of cultivating 
between the rows by implements for that purpose, the advan- 
tages of which are unquestionable. These implements are de- 
nominated horse-hoes, or sciifflers. 

In my next Report, I shall give a plate of a horse-hoe much 
in use ; but I cannot, among the many varieties exhibited, pro- 
nounce it the best. I shall give it as a specimen of the imple- 



* " With regard to nitrate of soda, from which so much was once expected. 
there are the most undoubted proofs, from numerous quarters, of an enormous 
increase of the produce after its use ; there are as undoubted instances of it- 
utter failure. Nor have we any clew to the mystery. On the same land, when' 
it gave me eight bushels one year, it gave barely three in the following; and hav- 
ing tried it largely, at that time, on different farms, nowhere with success, I have 
given it up. Still, there is evidently a principle of fertility in it, which will some 
day be found out; and some farmers continue to use it; but in several cases it 
has produced mildew in wheat and barley, by forcing the crop beyond the strength 
of the land. By tlie side of the nitrate, I tried, on several fields, the sulphate of 
ammonia, exti*acted from gas-water the first time. It acted precisely as the 
nitrate of soda, darkening the color of the plant, and strengthening the straw and 
the ear even more than the nitrate ; but it certainly did not pay. Again, we have 
the principle, and we must learn to combine it." — P. Pusey, Esq., M. P. 
19* 



222 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ments used here, thinking, if it has no other benefit, it may- 
furnish some useful suggestions to some of our inventive man- 
ufacturers of agricultural tools, who, in the ingenuity and skill 
of their productions, and especially in the excellence of the 
workmanship, (and if is no disparagement to the English manu- 
facturers for me to say it,) need not fear a competition with the 
best mechanics on this side of the water. The implement has 
received the highest premium of the Agricultural Society, with 
very strong commendations. 




%v,> 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 



EIGHTH HEPOET 



CVI. — CROPS. ( Continued. ] 
GarrtWs Patent Horse-Hoe. 




" This horse-hoe, invented by Garrett and Son, of Leiston, is 
suited to all methods of drill cultivation, whether broad, stetch, 
or ridge ploughing, and is adapted to hoeing grain of all kinds, 
as well as roots. The peculiar advantages of this implement 
are, that the width of the hoes may be increased or diminished, 
to suit all lands or methods of planting ; the axletree being 
movable at both ends, either wheel may be expanded or con- 
tracted, so as always to be kept between the rows of plants. 



224 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

" The shafts are readily altered and attached to any part of 
the frame, so that the horses may either walk in the furrow, or 
in any direction, to avoid injury to the crop. 

" Each hoe, or each pair of hoes, works on a lever independ- 
ent of the others ; so that no part of the surface to be cut, however 
uneven, can escape ; and in order to accommodate this imple- 
ment to the consolidated earth of the wheat crop, and also the 
more loosened top of spring grain, roots, &c., the hoes are pressed 
in by different weights being hung upon the ends of each lever, 
and adjusted by keys or chains, to prevent their going beyond 
the proper depth. 

" That which has hitherto been an objection to the general 
use of the horse-hoe, in this is avoided by adopting a mode of 
readily shifting the hoes, on a plan similar to that of the steerage 
adopted in drills, so that the hoes may be guided to the greatest 
nicety. This implement is so constructed that the hoes may be 
set to a width varying from seven inches to any wider space ; 
the inverted hoes are preferred, when the distance between the 
rows is sufficient to admit a pair of them ; otherwise, triangular 
or arrow-shaped hoes may be substituted, or any other form that 
may be considered best for the purpose. 

" Two points in this hoe are worthy particular notice ; the 
one being that the blades of the hoes are made entirely of steel, 
and are attached to the stalks so readily that, as they may 
become damaged or worn out, they may be replaced, by the 
operator, without difficulty ; the other, that the position of the 
frame admits of easy adjustment, so that, according to the tex- 
ture of the soil, the cutting edges of the hoes may assume a 
position more or less inclining to the work." * 

Wheat is drilled when it is sown in a continuous line, and in 
general the distance of these drills or rows from each other is 
about nine inches. A greater width is preferred by some persons. 
When the ground is marked out by a seam-presser, as before 
described, the seed then comes up in continuous rows, as if it 
were sown by a drill-machine ; but there are several machines in 
operation expressly for the drilling of wheat and for depositing, 
at the same time, in the drill, such fine manure as it may be de- 
sired to sow with the grain. Indeed, to such perfection have 

* Ransome's Implements of Agriculture. 



CROPS. 



225 



some of these macliines been carried, that even coarsely-chopped 
manure is likewise deposited by them in the row, as is done in 
the case of sowing turnips or other roots. 

At first sight, these machines appear extremely'' complicated 
and unwieldy ; and one would be inclined to think that a spin- 
ning jenny might be managed with equal ease in the field. 
They are cumbrous, and to a degree complicated ; yet they are 
much in use, and they certainly perform their work extremel^r 
well. This, perhaps, is all that is to be asked of them ; and 
mechanical ingenuity, which, under the stimulus of large pre- 
miums and a powerful competition, is now, every day, becoming 
more active, may presently succeed in rendering them more 
simple and light, without reducing their efficiency. I give 
below, merely as a specimen, the engraving of a drill machine 

GarreWs Patent Drill for General Purposes. 




to which the Agricultural Society awarded its premium of thirty 
pounds ; it is said to have a deserved popularity'. I have seen 
several different kinds in operation, but with very imperfect 
means of making a comparison between them ; and. from a neces- 
sarily cnrsorv observatiou, it would be presumptuous in me to 



226 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

pronounce a decision upon their merits. As every man, with a 
common endowment of philoprogenitiveness, deems his own 
children the handsomest; and, though they may be blear-eyed or 
bandy-legged, will come at last to look upon these defects and 
deformities with indulgence, or even with complacency and ad- 
miration, and will insist that others shall have the same opinion; 
so, if we take the accounts which the inventors and makers give 
of their own machines, we shall find the correspondent exaggera- 
tions of self-esteem, and vanity, and shall be called upon to believe 
that each one supplies the defects, and surpasses the merits, of 
every other. 

" The Suffolk drill is the kind in most general use throughout 
:he kingdom, and is adapted for drilling corn either on level 
lands or on ridges, and on all descriptions of soil. It is furnished 
with independent levers, by which the colters are each readily 
and separately made to avoid any rocks or irregularities of the 
ground, and a press-bar, extending over the entire width of the 
machine, to force the colters, in case of need, into hard ground, 
with a varying degree of pressure, according to the texture of 
the soil. 

" The colters can be set so as to drill the corn at any width, 
from four inches to a greater distance. They also, if required, 
readily allow of the introduction of the horse-hoe ; and, from 
being placed in double rows, they admit, when at work, large 
stones to pass between them, of a size that, under the old plan 
of placing the colters in one line, would break or stop the 
machine. The most complete drills are furnished with the 
' siving steerage,^ by which the drill-man keeps the rows at 
exact or even distances from those which have been previously 
drilled. The 'corn barrel' is made to deliver from two pecks 
to six or seven bushels of seed, per acre ; and they are furnished 
with an additional barrel for drilling turnips and mangel-wurzel. 
These barrels, by a simple yet efficient 'regulator,' are kept, on 
unequal, hilly ground, at the same level ; so that the grain is 
evenly delivered, in whatever situation the drill may be placed. 

" A ' seed engiiie ' is also sometimes added to the common corn 
drill, by which the grass seeds and clover are sown at the same 
time as the corn, and each kind of seed, if required, separately. 
By this plan, any quantity, per acre, of the seeds may be much 
more evenly distributed than by mixing them up together. For 



CROPS. 227 

-'» 

these seeds, being of different sizes and weights, are, in the or- 
dinary seed engines, very apt to separate in the boxes ; and thus 
the brushes too often deliver them in unequal proportions. 

" The weight of these drills necessarily varies with the num- 
ber of colters, ranging from three to ten hundred weight ; they 
are drawn, according to circumstances, by one, two, or three 
horses ; the sliding axletree, allowing the addition of any num- 
ber of colters, adapts the drill to different breadths of land. 

" The manure-box may be taken on or off at pleasure. It is 
a simple yet accurately-working apparatus for delivering the 
manure, which it does with great evenness, and in quantities 
varying, as the ' slip ' is placed, from six to eight bushels per 
acre. In the best drills, also, a very important improvement has 
been made within the last few years, which consists in the use 
of separate colters for manure and seed. The manure is now 
deposited, according to the mode preferred by the cultivator, not 
only from two to three inches deeper in the ground than the 
seed, but from ten to twelve inches in advance of it, so as to 
give the soil time to cover the manure before the next colters 
deposit the seed ; whereas, on the old plan, of depositing the 
seed and the fertilizer together down one pipe, an evil was liable 
to arise ; when it was used with some of the more powerful arti- 
ficial manures, the seed and the manure were too close together, 
and the manure was not dropped with certainty in its best posi- 
tion, under the seed. " * 

At the Shrewsbury meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, 
a drill, or seed-depositing machine, was exhibited, of which the 
approbation of the judges of implements is so emphatical that I 
shall quote it in full. It was the invention of Mr. William 
E. Yingoe, of Penzance, Cornwall. 

" This implement enlisted the judges' earnest attention and 
unqualified admiration, from the simplicity of its acting parts, 
the accuracy of its deposition of seed, and the mechanically- 
good adaptation of means to ends. Although simple, it is diffi- 
cult to describe. It travels on three wheels, the leading pair 
being attached to the shafts, from which pair is derived the 
small power required to effect the measurement and deposition 
of the seed. The machine is capable of sowing six rows of 



Ransome's Implements of Agriculture. 



228 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

corn, (grain,) or other seed, at a time. The apparatus for forming 
the drills consists of six pressing wheels, immediately followed 
by as many narrow boxes or shares, which maintain the little 
trenches clean and open, and each trench perfectly distinct, until 
the seed falls into them. Through these shares, the seed is con- 
ducted by small tubes from the seed-box or hopper above them ; 
and immediately behind the shares is placed a peculiarly-simple 
and effective kind of hoe, for covering the seed. The seed is 
received upon sliders resting upon the bottom of the hopper, 
and furnished with proper recipient holes, the size of which 
determines the number of seeds desired to be planted. Means 
are provided for striking off excess ; and it was found, on re- 
peated trials, that no greater difference took place, in the number 
of seeds deposited, than was fairly attributable to the difference 
in the magnitude of the corns. The entire apparatus is readily 
raised out of the ground at headlands, or when turning. If the 
preparation of a firm seed-bed be a good principle, this machine 
effects it as well as any presser ; pressing and drilling six rows 
at once, with an adjustment for shifting the width of the rows 
from five to any other number of inches apart desirable for 
grain ; and it either distributes the seed in a train or drops it 
within a small compass." * 

Such a machine as this would seem to meet its objects per- 
fectly ; but there are many others, which claim for themselves 
equal advantages. It would be idle to attempt to enumerate 
the various forms of drill machines which I have seen at work 
in the country, and to the value of which I can bear a strong 
testimony, not so much from an inspection of the construction 
of the machine as the excellent manner in which, so frequently, 
the work appears to be executed. The practice of drilling wheat 
is in ray opinion greatly to be preferred to that of sowing wheat 
broadcast ; first, in the much more equal distribution of the seed ; 
next, in the better opportunity which the wheat has of spreading 
or tillering ; and thirdly, in the opportunity of clearing and culti- 
vating the crop, which latter is of great importance. I am of 
an opinion, borne out very strongly by facts which have come 
under my observation, that wheat in the early periods of its 
growth is as much benefited by cultivation as any plant which 

* Report of Committee on Implements, at Shrewsbury, 184.5. 



CHOPS. 229 

is grown ; and the injury which is done, both to the growth of 
the plant and to the sample of grain, by the weeds which 
ripen their seeds among it, renders the weeding or clearing of 
the crop of great importance. This is often done here, even 
when the crop is sown broadcast ; and it is not uncommon, in the 
spring, to see a large party of women in a field, employed in 
weeding ; but it is obvious to what disadvantage this is done 
when the plant is sown broadcast, compared with it when sown 
in drills. 

The next mode of planting wheat is by dibbling. Drilling is 
sowing the wheat in rows, in continuous lines ; dibbling is 
planting it, in these rows, at intervals, sometimes, of six inches 
to a foot. This is sometimes done by hand : a laborer goes 
forward, with an instrument with two or three teeth, a 

making holes, into which children, who follow him, i 

drop one or more seeds as they go on, and cover U w' 
them with their hands or feet. Labor is here so ' * 

abundant, and parents, in order to eke out their narrow means 
of living, are so ready to avail themselves of the labor of their 
children, that this operation is not expensive, and indeed is often 
compensated by the actual saving in seed ; and abating the 
irregularities in the sowing, which may be expected from the 
common recklessness of children, may be considered as a good 
mode of executing the work. But machines have been invented 
for dibbling as well as for drilling ; and one called Newherrifs 
machine^ from the name of its maker, is exceedingly ingenious 
in its construction. I should find it difficult to describe it in- 
telligibly. A machine calculated to sow only one row has one 
wheel, to sow five rows has five concentric wheels, hollow, and 
with a box in them to contain the seed, with dibbled points upon 
the rim of these Wheels, at such distances as it is desired the 
holes should be made. As the machine revolves, these dibbles 
or pins, which are in fact hollow, force themselves into the 
ground, making a place or hole for the deposit of the seed ; and, 
as they are being raised from the hole, they divide and drop the 
seeds into it, which is covered and pressed down by the machine. 
The machine is calculated to sow from four to five pecks an acre. 
It is drawn by two horses. — in some cases more are required, — 
and in general performs its work well. It is an expensive machine ; 
VOL. 11. 20 



230 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and its weight has been objected to by many persons ; but by 
some farmers this, on light lands, is considered an advantage. 

There are several other kinds of dibbling machines, which I 
need not describe, and, among others, a machine carried in the 
laborer's hand, which makes the hole and drops the seed by the 
same operation. It is ingenious, but is adapted to cultivation 
only on a very small scale. 

On one of the best cultivated farms in England, — that of the 
Duke of Bedford, at Woburn, — Mr. Bumers, the farm manager, 
states (1845) that he employed boys to dibble one hundred acres 
of wheat. The holes were made with a stick or dibble, three 
inches asunder in the row, the distance between the rows being 
nine inches ; and the number of " dibs," per acre, amounted to 
232,320. He states that he has some boys who would make 
one hundred and fifty-one holes in a minute ; but of course they 
could not long continue such a rate.* 

A great diversity of opinion prevails on the subject of drilling 
and dibbling wheat; and, from the respectability of the diftering 
parties, there is reason to believe these different opinions are held 
in equally good faith. The invention of a patent machine for 
any particular object, like that of a patent medicine, always de- 
velops in the artist or inventor a wonderful facility in procuring 
authorities in its favor. The advantage of being able to weed 
and cultivate the plant applies even more to wheat which is 
dibbled than to that which is drilled, and the product is likely 
to be as good. In all these cases, the main saving calculated 
upon is in the quantity of seed to be sown. This may vary 
from one bushel and a peck to two bushels and upwards per acre. 
This is, certainly, where any large quantity is to be sown, an 
important consideration. Where the land is in good condition, 
enriched and free from weeds, and where the planting can be 



* On this excellent and admirably-managed estate, I found that thirty boys 
were constantly employed in flirm work, for which tliey received sixpence per 
day. Their wages were never raised, but whenever they could improve their 
condition, they were at liberty to avail themselves of the opportunity. They 
were thus furnished with regular work, and were serving an apprenticeslup to 
agriculture under the most favorable circumstances. This was real and most 
judicious philanthropy. This may not be understood on the other side of the 
water, where there is an urgent demand for all the labor that can be supplied ; 
but it will be appreciated here, where employment, at any rate, is often very diffi- 
cult to be procured. 



CROPS, 



231 



done very early in the season, and carefully done, dibbling may 
be considered safe, and perhaps to be preferred ; but, in all cases, 
against the advantages of dibbling a small quantity of seed, are 
to be set off the danger from insects and frost, and the imperfect 
germination of the seed. To save two bushels, or even one, per 
acre, in all the seed sown throughout the kingdom, would be an 
enormous saving, and come very near meeting all the demands 
which are made for foreign supplies ; but on tiie other hand, 
from the omission to sow sufficient seed, to experience a loss or 
deficiency of four or more bushels per acre, as some pretend would 
be the result, would be a much more serious matter. I liave 
known a good many persons to hold to some particular opinions 
or faith in religion, because they say, notwithstanding their con- 
viction of their inconsistency or absurdity, if they should prove 
wrong they still would be safe ; whereas, if they adopted other 
opinions, to which they feel strongly inclined, and of which they 
perceive the reasonableness, if they should not prove true, they 
would fiud themselves in an unfortunate condition. The state 
of opinion, in regard to the thick or thin sowing of wheat, is 
quite analogous. Farmers may be safe, and save their seed, by 
sowing little. They do not save their seed, but they are sure to 
be safe, — so far as this goes, — in regard to a crop, by sowing a 
good deal. Different minds will view the matter differently ; 
but, having fully stated the case, like a wise judge, I submit it to 
those whose province it is to decide. I have known a great 
many persons, who have enjoyed an extravagant reputation for 
wisdom, who never gave a decisive and unequivocal opinion in 
any case. Like the Delphic oracle, they were always sure to be 
right, because the prediction would fit any result. Without any 
pretensions to wisdom, it may be safe in me to adopt the same 
course. 

The increase which, by painstaking, may be obtained from a 
single seed is very remarkable. I have already spoken of some 
instances, but 1 shall refer to others, for two reasons ; first, for the 
curiosity of the fact, and showing how prolific, under good culti- 
vation, a plant may become ; and next, as evincing with how 
little difficulty a new and improved variety of grain may be 
obtained, by selecting from a field even a single head. 

A farmer in Cambridgeshire, in 1840, gathered, from one of his 
fields, eighteen very fine ears of wheat, (which were five, six, and 



232 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

seven set,) the proceeds of which filled a common wine-glass. 
The above was planted the following autumn, and produced 
one peck, which was planted November 8, 1841, and produced 
seven bushels and one peck : planted the same, November 2, 
1842 ; the produce one hundred and eight bushels and two pecks ; 
which was planted in the autumn of 1843, and produced one 
thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight bushels. This was 
the increase from the eighteen ears, in the short space of four 
years. 

We have another account of the product of a single ear, grown 
by an excellent and spirited farmer, Mr. Jonas, of Cambridgeshire. 

In 1838, dibbled in 50 kernels, (30 of which only grew ;) 

product, 14f oz. 
" 1839, " '• 14f ounces; .... " 1^ bushel. 

" 1840, " " 1 bushel 1 peck ; . . " 45 bushels. 
" 1841, " " 45 bushels; .... " 537 

A wheat in Scotland, known as the Hopetoun wheat, and 
deemed an excellent and prolific variety, owes its origin to the 
accidental circumstance of an observing farmer, Mr. Patrick 
Shirreff", having, in 1832, remarked a very superior ear, from 
which he picked out ninety-nine corns ; and from their product 
came this celebrated variety. A similar origin is ascribed to the 
Chevalier barley, a popular and favorite variety, which sprung 
from an extraordinarily fine head, gathered from his fields by a 
gentleman of the name of Chevalier, and sedulously propagated. 
It is thus seen " what great effects from little causes spring," and 
how often an improved variety may be obtained, in the vegetable 
as well as in the animal creation, by a careful, repeated, and per- 
severing selection. 

The preparation of seed wheat, with a view to prevent smut, 
is by immersing it in brine sufiiciently strong to bear an 
egg, and then sprinkling it with lime. Some persons recom- 
mend a solution of arsenic ; but this is always attended with dan- 
ger. An eminent farmer in Gloucestershire is of opinion that 
he always secures his crop against smut, by sowing newly- 
threshed seed, the produce of the preceding year. In his culti- 
vation, he sows from three and a half to four bushels ; his 
average crop is stated to be from twenty-eight' to thirty bushels, 
and sometimes forty bushels, per acre. The depth of sowing 



CROPS. 233 

is a point upon which all farmers are not agreed. Where the 
land is liable to be heaved by the frost, deep sowing of three and 
four inches is recommended ; and in such cases, the wheat is 
often ploughed in, and the land left in a rough state, which is 
supposed better to shelter the plant. By the best farmers, great 
pains are taken in the selection of the seed- wheat. It was once 
held — and upon as high authority as that of Sir John Sinclair — 
that imperfectly ripened and scarcely merchantable wheat, since 
it would germinate, would answer equally well the purpose of 
sowing as the best formed and best ripened wheat. This was 
even recommended as being a saving of seed, since more kernels 
in number would be contained in a bushel of shrivelled or half- 
ripened wheat than in one of full and plump grain. This notion, 
however, is exploded ; and wheat is understood to follow the 
universal rule, that, to produce the best, it is necessary to propa- 
gate from the best. Many farmers take pains, in selecting their 
seed, to take the best sheaves in their hands and strike them 
against some hard body, without threshing them either by ma- 
chine or flail, thinking that, by this process, the fullest and ripest 
grains will drop out, which they save carefully for seed. 

It is deemed of great advantage, in the spring, to drag or har- 
row the crop ; or, where it is in drills, to scuflle it, as I have already 
described ; or to hand-hoe and weed it, which, being light work, 
is generally done by women. I was about to say by old women ; 
but I am not positive in that matter ; for field-work, and poor 
clothing, and poor living, give an appearance of old age which is 
premature. Wheat is sometimes rolled in the spring before har- 
rowing ; and when far advanced in the autumn, it is sometimes 
fed down by sheep ; the effect of which is supposed to be, to 
strengthen the stalk and to cause it to tiller or spread more. 

The time of harvesting wheat has been matter of much dis- 
cussion ; but the results of repeated experiments, with a view 
to determine the best time, all point to an early rather than a late 
cutting. The best rule for harvesting is not merely when the stalk 
below the head has changed color, and the circulations have con- 
sequently ceased, but when the grain, though it has ceased to 
yield any milk upon pressure, is yet soft. It then ripens well in 
the sheaf; it yields more and better flour; and none is lost by 
shaking out, as when it is suffered to stand initil it has become 
dead-ripe. Some farmers recommend that the wheat should be 
20* 



234 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

cut seven days, others fourteen, before it would be perfectly ripe. 
I do not hold that the middle path is always the preferable course ; 
but there may be an error, as my own experience satisfies me, in 
cutting grain too early, as well as in cutting too late. In one 
respect, the farmers here have a great advantage on their side, in 
the number of laborers they can, at any time, bring into the fields ; 
so that the largest crops may be cut and gathered in a compara- 
tively very short time. 

Wheat here is seldom put in barns ; it is generally made into 
stacks. Staddles are formed of wood, — in some cases the feet 
are of cast iron, — about eighteen inches or two feet in height; 
sometimes the frame is of iron as well as the feet. On these the 
grain is stacked with the most extraordinary neatness, and well 
thatched. In this way, it will keep au}^ length of time. When 
placed on iron staddles, the stack is inaccessible to rats. In parts of 
Cambridgeshire where the stacks were placed upon the ground, 
I found them plastered with lime-mortar, about two feet from the 
ground up, and whitewashed, which was regarded as a preven- 
tive against vermin. The stacks, in general, are made round ; but 
this is objected to in Norfolk county, where the stacks are made 
long, as being made at less expense and more conveniently re- 
moved, in parts, for threshing. The stacks, generally, are calcu- 
lated to contain from eighty to one hundred bushels; but, in 
Lincolnshire, 1 found them of an immense size — at least twenty- 
two feet in height, and more than fifty feet in length. In Nor- 
folk, I found stacks of grain more than seventy feet long, and sur- 
rounding the homestead like a vast encampment. On one farm 
in the Lothians, I counted sixty-seven staddles ; and more than 
those were filled every year. Many of the large stacks which I 
saw were estimated to contain from eight hundred to one thousand 
bushels each. The neatness with which a skilful thatchcr will 
form, and finish, and frequently ornament, his stacks, is surpris- 
ingly beautifnl ; and the conscious dignity with \vhich one of 
these large farmers displays his magnificent stack-yard, and leads 
you about his premises, is sufficiently to be admired, and certainly 
not by me to be condemned. At the example farm at Whitfield, 
Gloucestershire, there was a small railroad from the stack-yard to 
the threshing-floor, by which the sheaves were very conveniently 
transported. The great advantage of stacking grain, over storing 
it in barns, is, that it is not so liable to injury from heat ; but the 



CROPS. 235 

thatcher's art is a matter of great skill and experience ; and as 
long as wooden barns are erected among us at so small an ex- 
pense, and with our off-hand modes of doing things, it can 
scarcely be expected that we shall have patience to adopt it. 
I can only add, that I know no agricultural picture more beauti- 
ful than a neat farm-house in the midst of a crowded and well- 
thatched stack-yard. 

I was to have said something of the different kinds of wheat ; 
but it would not be possible to find any universal or unanimous 
preference, as different kinds are popular in different localities. 
Hunter's wheat, in the Lothians, *' may be considered the most 
extensively cultivated of any genuine or unmixed variety in 
Scotland." It takes its name from the person who first propa- 
gated it by selection ; and it is said to have been cultivated on 
one farm more than sixty years. It weighs from sixty-four to 
sixty-five and a half pounds per bushel, and has produced at the 
rate of forty-six bushels to an English statute acre. It is a 
winter wheat. 

Mr. Skirving, the eminent seedsman of Liverpool, writes to me 
that he considers the Chidham wheat as the best to cultivate. 
This is known in Scotland as the pearl wheat. The grain 
weighs about sixty-five pounds per bushel. "It is a prolific 
variety, a free grower, and tillers freely in the spring." 

The Whittington wheat presents a very beautiful grain. It 
was here called a spring wheat, because it had been sown in Feb- 
ruary, and was mistaken for what is called a spring wheat in 
New England, and not sown there until April, when it universally 
failed. It is, however, a late wheat, and, with us, should certainly 
be sown in the autumn. 

The Talavera wheat is an early wheat, and much valued. 
" The bread made from it," says Colonel Le Couteur, whose care- 
ful experiments on the cultivation of different kinds of wheat are 
well known to the agricultural public, "is incomparably the 
best that I have met with. It is light, very white, and preserves 
its moisture almost as long as bread made from spring wheat. 
It is, moreover, so sweet and well-flavored as to appear to some 
palates more like cake than ordinary bread." It has yielded at 
the rate of fifty-two bushels per acre, weighing sixty-one pounds 
per bushel. Under the cultivation of another farmer, it produced 
thirty-six bushels per acre. Its cultivation has, however, been 



236 



EUROPEAN AtiUlCLbTCilE. 



abandoned in Scotland. It is not deemed sufficiently hardy for 
their cold and wet springs, and is complained of as not tillering 
freely. 

The Egyptian wheat, with its compound head, — appearing as 
though several heads of wheat, with the longest in the centre, 
were brought together, — is sometimes cultivated ; but its produce 
and quality are not such as to encourage the cultivation of it. 

I might enumerate many other varieties which are cultivated 
here ; but I have, in truth, seen none superior to kinds common in 
the United States, especially the white western wheats. Indeed, 
the bakers here, for the purpose of producing the finest bread and 
confectionary, prefer the best American flour ; and it would be 
difficult, at any time, to find any superior to the best Howard 
Street, from Baltimore, the best Philadelphia, and the best 
Genesee flour. 

The seed having been sown, every pains is taken to keep the 
ground entirely free from standing water or puddles, which are 
always hurtful to the plant ; and where the land has not been 
thoroughly drained, furrows are run across the field, for the pur- 
pose of intercepting and carrying off" any water which might 
otherwise stand upon it. 

Where wheat is to be followed by grass, or, as it is here termed, 
by seeds, clover and Italian rye grass are sown in the spring and 
harrowed in. Wheat sometimes follows potatoes ; but this is not 
generally approved. It often follows clover which has been 
mowed or depastured, and then ploughed and rolled and harrowed, 
and the seed sown on the inverted sward without disturbing it. 
This practice is much commended. Some farmers have found 
an advantage in sowing white mustard, and either feeding it off" 
by sheep folded upon it, or ploughing it under, in a state of succu- 
lency, as a green dressing for the land. About twelve or sixteen 
pounds, in such case, are sowed to an acre. A case is stated 
where the farmer, after ploughing in a crop of white mustard, 
obtained six or eight bushels more of wheat, per acre, than from 
land which was manured with rape cake. The land in this 
case, as I understand, was not manured for the mustard. The 
land is usually manured for mustard with seven or ciglit loads of 
manure per acre. The mustard is considered as a great preven- 
tive of wire-worms.* 

* Almack's Report of Agriculture of Norfolk. 



CROPS. 237 

I particularly refer to this practice, for the purpose of bringing 
before my readers an account of the experiment of John Keely, 
of Massachusetts, illustrating the beneficial effects of ploughing 
in a green crop as a preparation for a grain crop. To some of 
my readers, I am aware, it will be familiar, as I published it, 
some years since, in my first report of the Agriculture of Massa- 
chusetts ; but I must claim their indulgence, on account of other 
of my readers, on both sides of the water, to whom it may not 
be known, as the experiment seems to me of great importance, 
and directly bearing upon the subject which I am now treating. 
I shall abridge it as much as possible. 

" The land on which this experiment was made lies on the 
Merrimack River. The soil is a sand, approaching to loam as it 
recedes from the river. It is altogether too light for grass. 
Oats might probably be raised upon it to advantage, were it not 
that the land is completely filled with the weed commonly called 
charlock, (wild mustard,) which renders it unfit for any spring 
crop, excepting such as can be hoed. The crops of rye, on the 
neighboring soil of the same nature, vary from seven or eight to 
twelve or thirteen bushels per acre, according to the cultivation 
and their nearness to the river. 

" In the summer of 1827, we sowed three bushels of winter 
rye, near the river, on about two acres of land, which produced 
twenty-eight bushels. In 182S, we sowed four bushels on four 
acres, running the whole extent of the plain from the river. 
This piece was sowed in the spring with oats, but they were 
completely smothered with charlock ; and about the middle of 
June, the whole crop was mowed, to prevent the charlock seeding. 
By the middle of August, a second crop of charlock having covered 
the land, it was ploughed very carefully, in order completely to 
bury the charlock, and then suffered to remain until the 15th of 
September, when we began sowing the rj^e in the following 
manner : A strip of land about twelve yards wide was ploughed 
very evenly, to prevent deep gutters between the furrows, and 
the seed immediately sowed upon the furrow and harrowed in ; 
then another strip of the same width ; and so on, until the whole 
was finished. We found the oat-stubble and charlock entirely 
rotted, and the land appeared as if it had been well manured, 
though none had been applied to this part, since it had been in 
our possession. The rye sprung up very quickly and vigorously, 



238 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

having evidently derived great benefit from being sown, and hav- 
ing sprouted, before the moisture suppHed by the decaying vege- 
table matter in the soil had evaporated to any considerable extent. 
This crop produced one hundred and thirty-three bushels. 

"In 1829, the charlock was suffered to grow on the land appro- 
priated to rye, until it had attained its growth, and was in full 
blossom. The land was then ploughed, and the charlock com- 
pletely covered in. In a short time, a second crop appeared, more 
vigorous than the first. As soon as this had attained its growth, 
it was ploughed in as before. A third crop appeared, which was 
covered in when the land was ploughed for sowing, about the 
middle of September. This piece of land was a strip parallel 
with the other, and contained two acres. The crop produced 
seventy-four bushels and a half. 

" In 1830, the land appropriated to rye included nearly all the 
lighter parts of the soil, and, owing to a pressure of business, was 
not attended to as we could have wished. It was ploughed, in 
the early part of the summer ; but harrowing, to destroy the 
weeds, was substituted for the second ploughing. This, and the 
unusual blight which affected all the grain in this part of the 
country, led us to anticipate a small crop. It yielded fifteen 
bushels to the acre. 

" The land on which the crop of rye was raised the present 
season had, for three or four years previous, been planted with 
Indian corn ; and owing to the extent of our tillage land, we have 
not been able to apply more than four or five loads of manure to 
the acre this season. The charlock was suffered to attain its 
growth as usual, and on the 18th and 19th of June, it was 
carefully ploughed in. The second crop was ploughed in on 
the 6th and 7th of August. On the 14th and 15th of Sep- 
tember, it was sowed in the usual manner ; viz., a small strip of 
land was ploughed, and the seed sowed immediately upon the 
furrow, and then harrowed in. Then another strip of land was 
ploughed, and so on, until the whole was completed. One bushel 
per acre was sowed, as usual. Owing to the unusual severity of 
the winter, the crop was much injured, but recovered soon in the 
spring. The rye was reaped at the usual season. The land 
contained one acre and thirteen rods, and yielded forty-six bushels 
and three pecks — a remarkably fine sample." 

This is certainly an extraordinary resuk. Mr. Koely remarks. 



CROPS, 239 

that he " would not turn a furrow after the dew had evaporated. 
I have no doubt that a large portion of that fertilizing quality in 
the soil, which daring the summer months is constantly exhaled 
from the earth, is by the dew brought again within cur reach ; and 
it would be wise to avail ourselves of the opportunity of again 
burying it in the soil.* In the second place, I would by all 
means use a heavy roller after each ploughing. It would fill all 
the cavities left by the plough, and, by pressing the soil more 
closely upon the weeds, would liasten their decomposition and 
much retard the evaporation from the soil." An eminent judge 
was advised, when he gave his decisions, never to give the reasons 
for them : his decisions might be right, but the reasons for such 
decisions might not be the true ones. Mr. Keely might have 
benefited by the same caution. His facts, without question, are 
as stated, but the causes which he assigns for the result may not 
be those which have produced it ; yet the suggestions of such a 
man are entitled to consideration. 

The harvesting in England is performed in three modes ; by 
the sickle, by the common scythe, or by the Scotch bow or 
cradle. The sickle is fast yielding to the other instruments. 
The wheat is cut higher by it than by other modes, and there 
are therefore fewer weeds or foreign substances gathered among 
the straw, to fill the manure with pernicious seeds ; and the straw, 
being clean, is not liable to be heated in the stack. But, if the 
seeds are not carried into the manure, they are left in the field, 
and in some cases with equal disadvantage. The grain being 
cut high, more straw is lost upon the ground ; and reaping with 
the sickle is comparatively a slow process. Where the crop is 
much lodged, however, or matted, the sickle is almost indispensa- 
ble. Mowing the grain with a common scythe is practised in 
many places. A skilful mower lays the grain with great precision, 
so that it is easily gathered and tied. The crop is, of course, 
cut very low, and the straw is much mixed. The Scotch bow, 
which is merely a hoop, extended upon the handle of the scythe 
so as to receive the grain in falling, that the workman may de- 
posit it evenly for the binders, is much used, but, I may be 
allowed to say, is very inferior to the cradle, with its four or five 
fingers, in use in Now England and New Yorlc. 

* It will be recollected that this is the opinion of a plain and practical farmer, 
some years before Liebig detected the presence of ammonia in rain-water. 



240 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The wheat being harvested and removed, it is customary lo 
leave the field for the gleaners — the women and children of the 
vicinity. A farmer who does not do this, or who rakes his 
fields after the removal of the crop, usually renders himself 
obnoxious to the ill-will of his neighbors. This has now become, 
from long use, matter of prescriptive right. It is often, but 
not always, limited to the wives and children of the laborers in 
the service of the farmer. This privilege is worth more than 
one would at first be disposed to consider it, as a single expert 
gleaner will collect, in the season, three or four bushels. One 
woman assured me that she had sometimes obtained, by gleaning, 
to the amount of six bushels, in a year, of wheat ; but I deemed 
this statement, as perhaps peculiar to the sex, a little poetical. 
Such results exemplify, in a striking manner, the extraordinary 
amounts of small savings ; and if, as it is natural to suppose, 
they correspond to the accumulations of small expenditures, an 
experienced traveller or resident in England ceases to be sur- 
prised at them. The gleaners in a field, the women and chil- 
dren, from the peach-bloom of two years old to the sallowness 
and decrepitude of an old age withered by toil and want, present 
an interesting spectacle. I am not certain that this form of 
charity is unobjectionable ; but it is gratifying to contemplate, 
when a benevolent farmer, by not suffering his reaped fields to be 
closely raked, himself shares in the pleasures of the gleaners" 
acquisitions, and thus strengthens the bonds of good-will and 
kindness which connect him with his humble dependents. 

I have gone thus largely into the cultivation of wheat, be- 
cause in England, and perhaps throughout the world, it must be 
considered, as a bread plant, the most important of all agricul- 
tural products. I myself believe, when all its uses and all the 
circumstances of its culture are considered, — what it requires and 
what it returns, — that Indian corn is more valuable ; but it would 
be difficult to persuade others of this, who have not been brought 
up to its use. To the arable farmer here, and in the United 
States, where it can be grown, wheat must be the great object 
of attention. 

I suppose tliere is no country where the average yield of 
wheat is so large as in England ; and this product has nearly 
doubled within the last thirty or forty years. I am quite aware 
tb.at, in many parts of England, the crojis are still sirinl!. and do 



CROPS. 241 

not exceed sixteen bushels to an acre ; but on the estate of the 
late Mr. Coke, afterwards Lord Leicester, — where, when he came 
to reside on his property, it was thought, on account of the thin- 
ness and poverty of the soil, wheat would not grow, — the average 
yield is from forty to forty-eight bushels per acre ; and I have 
already referred to a large farm where the crop on the whole farm, 
in 1844-5, — a most favorable season, — averaged fifty-six bushels 
per acre. These are most encouraging results ; but since, beyond 
all question, in an instance referred to, eighty bushels have been 
produced, who will say that the limits of improvement have 
been generally even approached ? All this too has been, with- 
out doubt, the effect of improved cultivation. 

I have gone so fully into this subject that my readers may 
deem a recapitulation unnecessary ; but the subject is so impor- 
tant, and bears so strongly likewise upon other crops, that I 
must claim their indulgence for a few remarks. 

The success of no crop whatever can be commanded ; there 
are agencies and elements concerned in the production far beyond 
the power or skill of man to command or control. But that cul- 
ture may do much, is equally certain ; and the circumstances 
under which it succeeds are those in which we are mainly con- 
cerned. The soil on which the improvements on Lord Leices- 
ter's estate have been made, was originally a thin, gravelly, and 
light soil ; but it has been deepened by ploughing, and thoroughly 
pulverized, and enriched by manure. The manure has beeii 
appliea to the green crop, the turnips or swedes, in a most liberal 
manner, at the rate of fourteen loads to an acre, when ten are 
ordinarily considered an ample allowance ; but in addition to 
this, the crops have been consumed on the land by sheep folded 
upon it, and these sheep, during the folding, have been them- 
selves liberally supplied with linseed oil cake, than which, ex- 
cepting the flaxseed itself, nothing contributes more to .enrich 
the manure. In some cases, Mr. Coke was accustomed to ust.' 
rape cake as a manure, and this was ground fine and sowed in 
the drills with his wheat. There is no doubt of its efficacy, but 
it is not safe to use it without some mixture. The Dutch 
farmers dissolve it in their tanks of urine, and then apply it with 
great advantage. It is sometimes used as a top dressing between 
the rows of the growing crop. I have not found its use extensive. 

VOL. II. 21 



242 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Guano was not known as a manure in the time of Mr. Coke, but 
is now applied, properly mixed, by many farmers, with great 
advantage. The manure, however, which comes from animals 
folded on the land and fed liberally with linseed oil cake, is, 
beyond question, one of the most safe, one of the most enrich- 
ing, and one of the most permanent in its beneficial effects, which 
can be applied. I believe the soil for wheat cannot be too deep ; 
though, as I have already stated, it may be too loose at the top, 
and, in such cases, requires shallow ploughing and treading, or 
pressing on very light soils, in order that the roots may be firmly 
fixed in the soil, and the dirt not liable to be blown away from 
them. In Lord Leicester's cultivation, the seed was always 
drilled, and the crop most carefully horse-hoed, in which operation 
the dirt was thrown towards the plants. In the third place, the 
land was thoroughly cleaned of weeds. A gentleman, who 
visited the estate during the life of the former proprietor, states 
that in travelling over, and observing most carefully, a field of 
wheat of seventy acres, he discovered but one single weed, and 
that of charlock, which one of the workmen pulled up with a 
good deal of indignation. I will add only that success is always 
uncertain unless the land be thoroughly drained. Standing 
water upon the soil, or in the soil, is always prejudicial, and often 
fatal, to the crop. With respect to other matters connected with 
this cultivation, I have treated them so fully that I may leave 
it to my intelligent readers to form their own conclusions. 

I believe that the average crop of wheat here may be fully 
doubled. I shall quote, rather as a curiosity, the following state- 
ment, which has been furnished me. A cultivator, in the end 
of August, 1843, planted in his garden thirty-two grains of wheat, 
of the very best quality, at six inches apart, and at the depth of 
an inch and a half. In 1844, this seed produced thirty-two 
plants, having from ten to twenty-eight stems and ears each ; the 
average number of ears was sixteen ; the average weight of each 
plant was one and three quarters of an ounce. An acre of land 
would contain, at six inches' distance, 174,240 plants; the prod- 
uce, 304,920 ozs., or 10,000 lbs., or about 320 bushels, per acre. 
When a farm can be subjected to a most careful garden cultiva- 
tion, though the expectation of any approach, upon any extensive 
scale, to a crop even of one third of this amount, would be 



CROPS. 243 

deemed pure lunacy, it is apparent that a large increase of 
product may be confidently looked for. One would not be sur- 
prised at a great extension of spade husbandry, since I have been 
over a field, on one farm, of one hundred and fifty acres, thoroughly 
trenched to the depth of eighteen inches by the spade, and where 
the growing crops presented a promising appearance. This was 
done in a place where, and at a time when, labor was most abun- 
dant ; the undertaking was a substantial benefaction to the poor ; 
and the cost was not more than it would have been by brute 
labor. 

I might speak of the diseases and accidents to which this 
crop is liable ; but this would be to compose a treatise rather than 
a notice, and my readers will not expect it. One experiment 
made in the destruction of slugs upon wheat, by the apphcation 
of salt, is highly important. Where slugs have appeared on the 
wheat, a farmer in Norfolk has been in the habit of sowing one 
hundred weight of salt to the acre, which, without injury to the 
wheat, has proved effectual to their destruction. In one case, where 
the operation of sowing was in progress, on discovering slugs, he 
sowed as above, and in two days they wholly disappeared. An 
application of lime to slugs proved harmless.* I have known, 
in New England, the application of salt mixed with manure 
prove effectual for the destruction of wire-worms, in a cornfield. 
Calculations respecting the amount of injury often done to the 
wheat crops by the wire-worm, rate it at more than £60,000 per 
year. Indeed, it may be much more than that, and is scarcely a 
subject of calculation. Many insects affecting the grain crops 
are considered as wire-worms, which belong to a different tribe 
of insects ; and there are insects which prey upon other insects, 
and thus check their destructive ravages. The reflections of 
Mr. Curtis, an enlightened naturalist, on this subject, are so striking, 
that I know I shall gratify my readers by their quotation. 

" Let us now pause for a moment, and reflect upon the ex- 
traordinary fact, that our corn, the staff" of life, is placed in the 
power of this pygmy race ; and that, destined as man is to earn 
his bread by the sweat of his brow, yet famine, accompanied by 
its concomitants, disease and death, may overtake him, (notwith- 
standing his industry, and let his prospects be ever so promising,) 

* Almack's Report of the Agriculture of Norfolk. 



244 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

through the united operations of the insect race. How wonder- 
fully" displayed, therefore, are the wisdom and goodness of the 
Creator in so nicely balancing the destroyer and his parasitic 
enemies, as to keep man, naturally prone to indolence, ever on 
the alert ! and yet, when the countless hordes of noxious insects 
fall like an irresistible plague upon his crops, that Hand which is 
ever ready to befriend mankind arrests the scourge. Myriads of 
parasitic insects are let loose, multiplying as their prey in- 
creases ; the threatening scourge passes over with less loss than 
could have been anticipated ; and in the succeeding year, to the 
astonishment of the farmer, instead of the mischief being in- 
creased, not an insect enemy is to be seen." * 

2. Oats. — Oats are cultivated largely in Great Britain. In 
Scotland and Ireland, they are cultivated extensively for food for 
the population ; and, when the meal is of the best quality, in 
some forms in which it is cooked, it is not only palatable, but 
extremely agreeable. Porridge is prepared merely by boiling it 
in water, with some salt thrown in, until it reaches a proper con- 
sistence, and in this form is ordinarily eaten with milk. Brose 
is prepared simply by scalding the meal with boiling water, and 
throwing in a little salt. This is likewise eaten with milk. 
Oatmeal cakes are made of oatmeal, and spread out to a thin- 
ness not exceeding a quarter of an inch, and baked to a crisp. 
In many cases, I found a bitterness in the floiu", which I appre- 
hended arose from the seeds of some weed having been ground 
up with it ; but, with this exception, the porridge and the brose, 
ichcn eaten with a plenty of cream and sugar, (a little, as I 
thought, to the consternation of some of my Scotch friends,) was 
a most agreeable dish. A coarse quality of meal, in such cases, is 
preferred to that which is fine. It will not do to say that it is 
not a nutritious substance. The allowance, formerly, of a Scotch 
laborer was a peck of oatmeal per week, and two Scotch ])ints, 
or four quarts, of milk per day ; and this comprehended the 
whole of his subsistence. Where more hardy or more skilful 
laborers are to be found ; where wo are to look for a finer race 
of people than the Scotch, — more erect, more muscular, more 
energetic, with more of physical or of intellectual power, — I know 



* Curtis on Insects affecting- Corn Crops. 



CROPS. 245 

not ; and this dish is, perhaps, never absent from a Scotch table, 
and, with a large portion of the Scotch, constitutes their principal 
diet. In England and Scotland, oats and beans form the chief food 
of their horses, with a comparatively very small portion of hay ; 
and so many are kept for labor, sport, or pleasure, that the demand 
is immense. A pound of good oats is understood to give as 
much nourishment to a horse as two pounds of hay. 

Oats are not cultivated very difterently from the methods pre- 
vailing with us. They are most commonly sown broadcast, but 
sometimes are drilled, where the land is foul with weeds, and 
sometimes dibbled. When drilled, four bushels of seed are sown 
to an acre ; .when broadcast, it is not uncommon to sow six bushels : 
for though oats, like wheat, throw out side shoots, or, as it is 
termed here, tiller, yet the heads from the side shoots are seldom 
of nmch value. The crop varies from thirty to sixty, and some- 
times eighty, bushels. It is strongly advised to cut oats early, as 
soon as the stalk turns yellow under the head, and even while 
the other parts of it are green. None are lost, in such case, by 
shaking out ; the grain itself is brighter, and the straw is saved 
in a much more palatable condition for the animals to whom it 
is fed. 

When grass land is broken up, oats are almost always the first 
crop taken. In this case, the land is ploughed and the sward 
completely inverted in the autumn, and then harrowed or lightly 
ploughed in the spring. In this way, the oats have the benefit 
of the decaying vegetable matter turned under. The oats, 
when sown broadcast, are most often harrowed in ; but when 
ploughed, it is done with a light fnrrow, as they will not germi- 
nate when deeply covered. Oats are sometimes sown after 
turnips which have been fed to sheep folded on the ground. 
In this case, the ploughing is very light. . Those, however, which 
are grown upon old grass or pasture land broken up, give gener- 
ally much the largest return. Oats are grown upon soils of 
almost every description, but certainly not with equal success : 
and a strong, rich loam may be expected to give the best crop. 
The poorer the soil, in general, the more seed is advised. 

In the admirable Agricultural Museum of the Highland Agri- 
cultural Society there are specimens of forty diff'erent kinds of 
oats ; but it would be useless to give a mere list of names. 
What is called the common oat is the oat which, without any 
21* 



246 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. 

particulai" selection, happens to be cultivated iu some particular 
district. 

The potato oat, which I have often met with, is much esteemed 
The grain is short and white, the panicles well filled, and it is 
usually without beard or awns. But it is said to become 
bearded, from being cultivated too long on dry soils without 
changing the seed. The specimen in the Museum weighed 
forty-six and a half pounds per bushel. I have known this oat 
cultivated in the United States ; the first year with success; but 
the second year the crop was much less in the number of 
bushels, and in the weight of the grain. I cannot think there 
are any insuperable obstacles to its successful cultivation in the 
Northern United States, unless they should be found in the 
intense heat of our summers. This sort is said to have had an 
accidental origin among a field of potatoes, and from that circum- 
stance obtained its name. 

The Hopetoun oat is another celebrated Scotch oat, which 
had its origin in an accidental selection. It is stated to be not 
so liable to be shaken out by the winds as the potato oat, and to 
be a few days earlier ; its straw longer and stiffer, and not so 
likely to become lodged. It is esteemed better adapted for light 
than for strong clay soils ; but is more liable to smut than the 
potato oat. For low meadows and newly-reclaimed lands, it is 
much esteemed. The sample in the Museum, which was se- 
lected from that exposed in the Edinburgh market, weighed 
forty-six pounds per bushel. 

The black Tartarian oat is much cultivated in England, 
the white to a considerable extent in Scotland. The straw 
sometimes reaches six feet in height. These kinds are late, and 
require a very rich soil. They are well known among us, having 
all the panicles on one side; not often found unmixed, but, 
within my knowledge, successfully cultivated by an eminent 
farmer, in New Hampshire, on Connecticut River, whose crops 
average from sixty to seventy bushels per acre. 

I have seen here a very superior oat from Archangel, in Russia, 
and greatly esteemed by Mr. Dickinson, at whose extensive and 
beautiful stables, in T^ondon, I met with it. He informed me it 
was cured by fire in the plant, and weighed thirty-eight poimds 
per bushel. He valued it for feeding, weight for weight, more 
than any other. It was a small oat, but long in proportion. 



CROPS. 247 

3. Barley. — This crop is very largely cultivated in England. 
It oiten follows turnips; and then, clover being sown with it, a 
good preparation is made for wheat. The uses to which it is ap- 
plied in England are principally for malting and making into beer, 
of which the consumption is great beyond all ordinary calcula- 
tion, malt hquor being the favorite drink of all the lower classes, 
and seldom absent from the tables of the rich and luxurious. 
In Scotland, much barley is used for distillation into spirits. 
Barley was formerly, and is now, in some countries, used for 
bread ; but in this respect it yields to the finer grain, wheat, and 
even to rye and oats. It is used to some extent for feeding cattle 
and swine, but mainly for the purpose of malting. 

Barley is of various kinds. One kind has two rows, and an- 
other has six rows, to a head. That which has two rows only 
is generally preferred. There are two kinds, distinguished from 
the time of sowing, as winter and spring barley, the former being 
sown in autumn. The alternations, in winter, of freezing and 
thawing, are prejudicial to winter crops, and an early sowing of 
the spring crop is strongly recommended. There is a coarse 
kind of barley, known as here, or bigg, which is advised to be 
sown where the crop is to be cut for green feed. There is a 
kind, called the naked barley, which somewhat in appearance 
resembles wheat, and from which the corolla is spontaneously 
separated. This kind is said to be much esteemed on the Conti- 
nent, but is not much cultivated in Great Britain. The here, or 
bigg, ripens much earlier than other kinds, and is consequently 
adapted to a late climate. 

Barley is sown broadcast or by drill, and harrowed in. It is 
advised that it should be sown always upon a newly-ploughed 
and fresh soil, and that it should be carefully rolled, either im- 
mediately upon being sown or after the plants are above ground. 
When barley is drilled, and it is intended to sow grass seeds 
among it, they may be sown after the barley is hoed, and then 
rolled ; or, if the barley is sown broadcast, they may be sown 
with the barley. There is almost always danger, in such cases, 
however, of burying the grass seeds too deeply. 

The cultivation of barley is so well understood in the United 
States that I need not enlarge upon it. One of the best farmers 
in England, whose premises I have had the pleasure of inspect- 
ing, drills in about three bushels and a half per acre, at seven 



248 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

inches apart, and then harrows it with a h'ght harrow, and sows 
clover and other grass seeds upon it with a machine drawn by a 
horse, that it may be the more evenly spread. The barley under 
his management is always carefully weeded. A double-rowed 
barley, called Chevalier, from the name of the person who first 
selected a single head in his field and grew ultimately a crop 
from its product, has for many years been greatly preferred in 
England, and continues to maintain its high reputation. The 
average weight of barley is from forty-five to fifty-five pounds 
per bushel, and a crop on land well prepared is from thirty to fifty 
bushels. Its proportion of nutritive matter is sixty-five per 
cent. ; that of wheat being seventy-eight per cent. On good 
loamy soils, barley is more profitable than oats. It is not so eli- 
gible on stiff and cold clays. It is considered not so great an 
exhauster of the soil as oats. A good deal is sown in the neigh- 
borhood of London, to be cut as green feed for milch cows in 
the large milk establishments. Machines are in use for hummel- 
ling barley, — that is, breaking otf all the awns close to the 
grail), — and likewise for hulling it, so as to form what is called 
pot or pearl barley, a very nutritious and agreeable ingredient 
in broths and in drinks for invalids. 

4. Rye is very little cultivated in Great Britain, and I have 
never seen it used here for bread. It is, however, sown for green 
fodder, and with great advantage, as it comes early. I have 
described already an early and extraordinarily-useful kind under 
the designation of St. John^s day rye, which produced, besides 
being repeatedly cropped, thirty-six bushels to the acre. I believe 
that rye might be more extensively cultivated in England, to great 
advantage, for human food, if its proper use was understood, — 
for the feed of dairy cows in the spring, as nothing will produce 
greater secretions of milk than rye meal, — and also for the fat- 
tening of swine. In the best dairy districts of the United States, 
where the amount of cheese made to a cow is nowhere ex- 
ceeded, nor within my knowledge equalled, — a draught of about 
three quarts of rye meal per day given to a milch cow, in the 
spring, before the grass is abundant, is amply compensated by the 
increased amount of milk and cheese produced; and I have 
known it applied to the feeding of swine with great success. 

Having thus far treated the cereal or bread grains, called lohitc 



CROPS. 249 

crops, I come next to consider another class of plants, much cul- 
tivated and of great value in English husbandry. 

5. Beans. — Beans are of several kinds. The first division is 
into garden and field beans. Of garden beans very few are cul- 
tivated. String beans, otherwise called French beans, are com- 
mon enough ; but I have not met with our finest kinds of shell 
beans, such as the cranberry, the pole, kidney or caseknife 
bean, and, above all, that rich and delicious vegetable, the Lima 
bean. If they are known in England, it has not been my fortune 
to meet with them, either in the markets or at private tables. 

Beans may be considered, in England, as a most important field 
crop, and are principally used for the feeding of horses, to which 
they are given, usually, broken and mixed with oats, — a quart 
of beans being considered as quite equal to two quarts of oats, — 
or with cut hay and chaff. They are likewise used in fatting 
swine ; but they are considered to give too much hardness to the 
pork, excepting when it is to be used for bacon. They are deemed 
valuable likewise for fatting oxen, and increase much the milk 
of cows. They may be said to take the place with the English 
which Indian corn takes with us. Some quantity of beans are 
mixed with new wheat to be ground, as the millers say "that 
soft wheat will not grind well without them ; and, as one 
shrewdly observes, they take care that in this matter there shall 
be no deficiency." I have eaten, in Scotland, bread made with 
a large proportion of bean flour, but I cannot say with much 
relish. The nutritive qualities of beans, as compared with wheat, 
are as sixty-eight to seventy-eight per cent. The ordinary 
weight of a bushel of beans is sixty-six pounds. 

There are several kinds cultivated, which are known bydifier- 
ent names ; but the kind most approved is a small, round bean, 
of a dark color, and of nearly twice the size of a marrowfat pea. 
A well-cultivated field of beans is, in its early stages, a beautiful 
object. The land most suited to beans is a strong, rich loam, 
and a clay soil is congenial to them. Nearly seventy bushels 
have been obtained from an acre ; sixty is a large crop ; ordina- 
rily, however, they do not exceed thirty bnshels. Here they are 
sown early, — in February or early in March, — and ripen late. 
They are sometimes sown broadcast, and large crops have been 
obtained in this way ; but it is not recommended, from the diffi- 



250 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



culty of keeping the crop clean, which is of the highest impor- 
tance, where a wheat crop is to follow. They are usually drilled 
ten or twelve inches asunder, and the intervals hoed ; and some- 
times two feet, or two feet and a half, apart, and then carefully 
cultivated between the rows. The land, in such case, is com- 
monly highly manured, the manure being rotted barn manure, 
spread and ploughed in ; and, being kept as clean from weeds as 
possible, there is a fine preparation for wheat. In this way, 
wheat and beans are made to alternate on the same land for 
years, with advantage ; though the land should be strong, to bear 
so severe usage, and the bean crop must be liberally manured. 
The rotation often adopted is, turnips, barley, clover, beans, 
wheat ; where the land is very rich, it is, turnips, barley, clover, 
oats, beans, wheat, beans. The quantity of seed sown by 
drill for beans is two and a half and three bushels. Peas are 
sometimes sown with beans for a green crop, for the purpose of 
soiling ; in which case, three bushels of beans and two of peas are 
sown ; and this produces a nutritions and well-relished food for 
cattle and for pigs. Of crops which ripen their seeds kw are 
less exhausting to the soil than beans. Beans, at harvest, are 
shocked in the field until dry, and then placed in stack to be, 
after a while, threshed out, either by flail or by a machine. 
The fodder, cut up with other fodder, in the spring of the year, 
is eaten by stock. Caution is advised in givmg horses new 
beans, as they are very likely to founder them. The crop of 
beans here is certainly most valuable, in a climate where Indian 
corn will not grow ; but it seems, in all respects, much inferior to 
that inestimable and useful product, the value of which, in my 
estimation, and the more I see of foreign husbandry, is contin- 
ually rising. The small, white, kidney or round bean, so com- 
mon with tis, and so much eaten in some parts of the country, is 
not, within my observation, grown or used here. 

I tried the cultivation of English horse-beans more than once 
in the United States ; but they were always, in the time of flow- 
ering, destroyed by a small, black fly, which they seemed to 
attract in an extraordinary degree, and which stripped the stems 
completely of their foliage. 

6. Peas do not appear to be extensively cultivated in England, 
as a field crop. The yield, when successful, varies from twenty 



CROPS. 251 

to forty bushels ; but there is nothing pecnHar in the cultivation. 
It is considered a valuable food for horses and for swine, and 
large quantities, raised or imported, in the form of split peas, are 
consumed in soups, &c. The garden culture of peas, in the 
neighborhood of London, and other large cities, to be sold green, 
is most extensive ; but there is nothing remarkable in the process. 
With a view of forwarding them, the land is thrown into ridges, 
running north and south, and the seed is dropped on the south 
side, at the bottom of the ridge. High manuring increases very 
much the growth of the stalk, but postpones proportionately the 
forwarding of the pods. For five different and valuable kinds 
of peas, " the country," Mr. Lawson says, " is indebted to T. A. 
Knight, Esq., the late distinguished president of the London 
Horticultural Society, who obtained them by crossing or hyb- 
ridizing some of the most esteemed varieties. From their re- 
markably-wrinkled appearance, together with the peculiar sweet- 
ness which they all possess, Knight's marrows may be said to form 
a distinct and most valuable class of garden peas." These are, 
certainly, most honorable contributions of eminent skill and 
science to the public good. The haulm of peas, as well as that 
of beans, is carefully saved, and much valued as fodder for cattle, 
and especially for sheep. 

7. Vetches or Tares. — This plant is extensively cultivated 
in England, and considerably in Scotland ; and, in my opinion, its 
cultivation may be strongly recommended in the United States. It 
is not much cultivated for the seed, as the permitting it to ripen 
would tend to exhaust the land ; but the seed is usually imported 
from the Continent. The principal object of its culture is to fur- 
nish green food for stock, horses and milch cows, which are 
soiled. Tares supply an immense burden of most nutritious food. 
They are cut only once ; but they are sown at different times, 
and sometimes as late as August, that the supply of green feed 
may be uninterrupted. 

Tares are of two kinds, — winter and spring, — which differ in 
no respect, excepting in the habit of ripening ; and the tares sown 
under favorable circumstances in the spring will not lag far be- 
hind those which are sown in the autumn. 

The land should bo brought into a state of fine tilth, and should 
be well manured. Sometimes they are sown upon a grain stubble, 



252 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

which must be carefully ploughed in and reduced. Three 
bushels is the quantity of seed to be sown to an acre where they 
are to be consumed green ; two and a half where they are grown 
for the seed. They may be sown broadcast, or drilled, or 
dibbled ; and the latter modes are recommended where the lands 
are foul with weeds. With winter tares it is recommended to 
sow rye ; with spring tares, which are to be cut for feed, oats or 
barley may be sown, to improve the value of the crop. The 
crop is cut daily and fed to sheep, which are folded upon the 
ground, or cut and carried into the stables for horses and cows. 
Vast quantities are cultivated, in the neighborhood of London 
and other large cities, for the milk establishments, and for a 
change of diet for the horses which are kept there. The cut- 
ting of the tares may be begun as soon as they come into flower, 
and continued until the pods are fully formed ; and if there is 
then a surplus, they may be cut and made into hay, so as to 
avoid the exhaustion of the soil by the ripening of the seed. 

I am not able to give the amount of product which may be 
obtained from an acre, but from observation I know it must be 
very large. I do not know whether a larger yield can be ob- 
tained from it than from the improved Italian rye grass, of which 
I have given an account ; but, as an article for soiling, it is easily 
cultivated, and would prove invaliiable. The winter tares would 
scarcely endure our northern climate. The value of some por- 
tion of green feed to our horses kept in stables, in cities, would 
be very great; and a mixture of this with the dry feed upon 
which many of them are now exclusively kept from one year's 
end to another, would be greatly conducive to their health and 
comfort. Many a poor mechanic or laborer among us, with a 
small piece of land attached to his domicile, would find it quite 
easy to keep a cow, and obtain an ample supply of milk for his 
family, by the cultivation of some such crop as this. This plant 
is an annual. There are vetches which are biennial, but they 
are not recommended for cultivation. The seeds of tares are 
deemed vaulable for poultry. They will increase the flesh of 
horses, but are considered hurtful to them. 

8. Turnips. — The next great crop in English husbandry is 
turnips. Of these there are several botanical varieties ; but 1 avoid 
those distinctions, as of little value to general readers. There 



CROPS. 253 

are two great and well-known classes ; the common turnip, of 
which there are three varieties, — the flat, the globe, and the 
tankard turnip ; and the Swedish turnip, or ruta baga. The 
common turnip requires a shorter season, more quickly decays, 
and is a less substantial food, than the Swede turnip. The 
common turnip is usually white ; but there are yellow varieties, 
which are nearly as solid, and almost as enduring, as the Swedes, 
Such, for example, is the yellow Aberdeen turnip, which will 
keep late into the spring, when the common white turnip has 
become corky and vapid. ' 

The turnip has been cultivated for centuries in England ; but 
it is within a comparatively recent date that it became a matter 
of general field cultivation upon light lands, and may be said to 
have effected a revolution in husbandry. The great value of it 
is in feeding stock, especially in the return which it makes to the 
land when it is fed to sheep folded upon the land ; in the manure, 
likewise, which it produces when fed to cattle or sheep in stalls 
or yards ; in the increased number of stock which its production 
puts it in the power of farmers to keep; and in its intermixture 
with dry feed, enabling them to make use of that dry feed to 
advantage, to which, otherwise, cattle could not be confined but 
at the expense of health and comfort. Though other articles may 
be useful and expedient — such as grain, and oil cake, and hay, 
— yet many sheep and cattle are now actually fatted upon turnips 
and straw. It is said that this is done with more difficulty at 
the south of England than at the north ; the turnips in Northum- 
berland, and at the north, being accounted richer, or more nu- 
tritious, than in the southern counties ; thus seeming to confirm a 
strong opinion entertained by some persons that the colder the 
climate, the more nourishing the esculents grown in it. Another 
great advantage arising from the cultivation of turnips is in the 
cleanness of cultivation to which it leads, and which thus forms 
a suitable preparation for wheat, or the grain crop which usually 
follows them. 

The land for turnips, if not stifT and hard bound, cannot be 
too rich for them ; though the application of an excessive quan- 
tity of manure would be prejudicial, in some cases, to the suc- 
ceeding crop of wheat, causing too rank a growth, and occasion- 
ing it to lodge. The common preparation for turnips is by a 
thorough ploughing in the autumn : then the land is amply 
VOL. II. 22 



254 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



manured, by manure spread on the furrow and lightly }..luughed 
in. The manure, however coarse, in such case, will become 
fully decomposed by the spring. In the spring, this land is laid 
into ridges about twenty-seven inches apart, and the seed sown 
on the toj) of the ridge by a machine. In other cases, where the 
cultivation is more complete, furrows are opened in the spring, 
and the manure placed in the furrows ; back furrows are then 
turned so as to form a ridge, upon which the turnips are sown by 
a drill machine, which, as it deposits the seed, deposits, at the 
same time, a quantity of ground, or dissolved bones, or some other 
artificial manure. Sometimes the bones are sown broadcast ; and 
from twenty to twenty-five bushels of ground or broken bones are 
considered an ample dressing. On the application of bones as a 
manure, and their solution by sulphuric acid, — that great contri- 
bution of chemistry to agricultural improvement, — I shall speak 
under another head. About two pounds of turnip seed are sown 
to an acre. The practice of sowing broadcast, which formerly 
prevailed, is nearly abandoned ; but it is still a vexed question 
whether they should be drilled in upon a flat surface, or upon 
ridges. Where the land is thin and liable to suffer by drought, 
the flat surface is to be preferred ; but otherwise, in my opinion, 
ridges, with the manure placed under the plant, are much better. 
The ridges, for Swedes especially, should be at least twenty-seven 
inches apart, — for the common turnip a less distance ; and the land 
may then be thoroughly cultivated between them. After the 
last hoeing, if the condition of the land admits of it, cabbages 
may be planted between the rows. The interval at which the 
plants are left on the ridge is, generally, about a foot. Mr. John 
Bloomfield, of Holkham, one of the favorite tenants of Lord 
Leicester, and from whose experience and excellent farming I 
derived much valuable instruction, states that he gets a better 
crop when his Swedes are left at eighteen inches apart. Six 
inches apart is enough for other turnips. 

Turnips, in the first part of their season, cannot be cultivated 
too much. The fly is the great evil, in the turnip crop, witli 
which the farmers have to contend. A preventive is found 
by some farmers in late sowing. The flics are accustomed to 
appear at a season when, ordinarily, the plants are in readiness 
for them. By postponing the sowing ten or twelve days, the 
flies will have passed their period, and the crop is safe. 



CROPS. 



255 



The turnip crop is to be considered, as I have already re- 
marked, as the foundation of the improved husbandry of Eng- 
land, in the means which it affords of supporting an increased 
stock, in the abundance of enriching manure which it thus 
supplies, and in the cleanness of cultivation to which it leads 
as a preparation for other crops. They are usually fed oif in 
the field ; the white turnips, often, as they are grown, in the 
ground, — which I cannot help thinking a slovenly mode of hus- 
bandry. But in most cases, they are pulled and topped, and 
tailed, and cut by a machine, and fed to the sheep in troughs 
on the field where they grew ; the fold, which is composed of 
movable fences, being changed from one part of the field to 
tlie other, until the whole is gone over, and the crop consumed. 
They are sometimes spread upon grass lands, both for cattle 
and sheep, but are most commonly given to cattle in stalls. 
Many of the best farmers pull all their turnips, and feed them 
to their cattle and sheep in their straw yards ; which enables 
them to convert their straw into enriching manure. The Scotch 
fanners in the Lothians, and the farmers in Northumberland 
and the northern counties, who grow immense quantities of 
turnips, sell them to feeders of sheep and stock, as they stand 
in the field, upon the condition that they are to be consumed 
where they grow. The sheep and cattle are brought, in such 
cases, from the Highlands in the north, and are here prepared for 
market. The climate of England enables the farmers to leave 
their turnips, for the most part, in safety, in the ground, during 
the winter, and to gather them as there may be occasion. The 
Swedes, if not pulled, and if left to thaw in the ground, suffer 
little from frost. Various modes are adopted for protecting 
them, in parts of the country where it is deemed necessary or 
expedient ; and they must, of course, be removed, where a grain 
crop is to be sown in the autumn or early winter. I need not 
describe these modes, as few of them would be applicable to 
my own country. Swede turnips may, as I know by re- 
peated experience, be kept well during our coldest winters, by 
being laid upon the ground, where the bottom is dry, and piled 
up in a long ridge, like the pitched roof of a house, being first 
covered lightly with straw, and then with dirt, — holes being left 
in different places, as ventilators for the heat to escape ; and 
then, as the cold increases, the covering of straw and dirt is 



256 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



to be increased. Access may be liad to them, in such case, at 
the southern end, which may be kept fortified against frost by 
loose bundles of straw packed. In this way, with care, they 
may be well preserved until spring, and be at hand through the 
winter for the stock. They may be well kept likewise in bins, 
in our barns, well packed round, top, bottom, and sides, with 
coarse hay. This is an excellent and most convenient mode. 
In our cold climate, the covering must be liberally and carefully 
returned, if they are opened occasionally for a supply. 

I believe our farmers would find a very great advantage in 
growing esculent vegetables for sheep and cattle, instead of 
keeping them, as is now done, through our long and severe win- 
ters, exclusively upon dry feed. They would be most useful for 
sheep in the lambing season, and for cows in milk; and though, 
in fattening properties, I know no article, all things considered, 
superior to our Indian corn, yet they certainly would come most 
beneficially in aid of that. I do not assert that turnips are the 
best crop, for this purpose, which can be grown, but Swedish 
turnips are certainly among the best. Mangel-wurzel, carrots, 
cabbages, parsnips, and potatoes, are all useful. I may recur 
to this subject again ; but the conclusion to which I have my- 
self come, and in which I am daily confirmed, and with which 
I wish the farmers of the United States could be more and more 
impressed, is, that an abundant supply of succulent food should 
be provided for their stock during our long winters, — first, as 
conducive to the health of the stocli: ; and next, as contributing 
essentially to the improvement of fattening stock, and as enabling 
the farmer to keep more stock ; and lastly, as furnishing him 
with the best means of enriching his farm, and extending and 
improving all his other crops. These have been the striking 
and universally-acknowledged results of such a system of hus- 
bandry here : and I have not a doubt that, in those parts of the 
United States from which the markets in our cities are to be 
supplied with beef and mutton, though, from the severity of our 
climate, it might with us be a more laborious process than here, 
and we could not have the advantage of feeding off our green 
crops on the lands where they grew, yet its great benefits would 
be an ample compensation for any extra expense or labor to 
which it might, in many situations, subject us. The difficulty 
and expense of procuring labor may present itself as an objec- 



CROPS. 



267 



tioii ; but that will be constantly diminishing. Improved ma- 
chinery, and new implements of husbandry, arc yearly affording 
increased facilities in cultivation ; and, for our husbandry to be 
successful, it will require the liberal application of capital, added 
to enterprise, experiment, eifort, and perseverance. 

The following result of an experiment, by Mr. J. Bloomfield, 
of Warham, Norfolk county, to determine the best distance at 
which plants should stand, was given me by this excellent 
farmer, and will be curious to my readers. It was made upon 
Swede turnips. The row was twenty yards long. 



Rows. 


No. of Turnips 
in each Row. 


Distance apart 
in the Row. 


Average Weiglit 

of each Turnip 

in the Row. 


Weight of all 
in the Row. 


Produce per Acre, 
topped and tailed. 






Inches. 


lbs. 


Stone. lbs. 


Tons. Oct. 


1 


32 


24 


5d- 


11 12 


24 4 


2 


38 


22 


3f 


10 2 


20 1 


3 


39 


20 


3i 


10 00 


19 13 


4 


40 


18 


3 


8 10 


17 15 



Fractions are omitted. The stone is 14 pounds. 

9. Potatoes, Beets, Carrots, Parsnips. — Of these several 
crops I see nothing peculiar in the cultivation in Great Britain, 
which would require me to treat them at any great length. 

The potatoes brought upon the table are, in general, of a much 
better quality, drier, and more mealy, than those grown in the 
United States. The potatoes grown on new land, however, in 
the Northern States, are excellent ; and the potatoes brought to 
market from the northern parts of Maine, and from Nova Scotia, 
are not excelled by any which I have met with. Within my 
own observation and experience, likewise, I have found that the 
finest seed potatoes from this country, planted in the United 
States, with the exceptions above referred to, have, after the first 
year, deteriorated, and become conformed to those usually planted 
in the country. It is demonstrated, therefore, to my mind, that 
new lands yield potatoes of a better quality than lands which 
have been long under cultivation ; and that a low temperature 
and damp climate, such as are found in the northern parts of 
Maine, and the British Atlantic provinces of North America, are 
favorable to potatoes, while in hot and dry climates the quality 
of the vegetable is inferior. 
22* 



258 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Potatoes are almost invariably planted here in drills or fun'ows 
about thirty inches apart. The furrow is first opened ; the 
manure laid in it ; the potato planted ; and the land reversed by 
the plough, so as to cover the seed. They are then, just after 
appearing above ground, often harrowed ; and, after getting to 
some height, the harrow, or cultivator, is passed between the 
rows ; and they are earthed up with a double mould-board plough, 
or by a single plough passing twice in the furrow. When ready 
to be dug, or, as it is here termed, lifted, a double mould-board 
plough is passed down once, or a single plough twice, through 
the row of potatoes ; those are picked up which are thrown out ; 
and then the whole field is thoroughly harrowed, which brings 
the remaining potatoes to the surface to be gathered. 

Two or three points seem to be well established here ; first, 
that, in planting, it is better to use whole than cut sets; that, 
where they are cut, the seed end of the potato is more produc- 
tive than the opposite end, and, while the former is used for 
planting, the latter may be saved for food; and lastly, that the 
crop is considerably increased by early plucking ofi' the blos- 
soms. I have already described the lazy-bed mode of cultiva- 
tion, and the large crops sometimes obtained, in my account of 
the Agricultural School at Glasnevin. In general, however, the 
crops are not large, not much exceeding two hundred and fifty 
bushels to the acre, which, though a respectable, is certainly not 
a great yield. Potatoes are raised largely for the market in 
some places ; but, in passing through the country, the extent of 
land under cultivation in potatoes appears comparatively small. 

I cannot join with Cobbett in his anathemas upon pota- 
toes, to which a learned agricultural professor here has lately 
added the force of his denunciations, which are likely to fall 
harmless under the power of habit and general taste. There 
certainly can be found, as common consent seems to have estab- 
lished, no more agreeable, and no more nutritious esculent than 
a well-cooked potato ; and under few crops will an acre of ground 
yield more food for animals. The disease which has prevailed in 
the potato — the ravages of which have been so extensive and 
alarming — will, it is hoped, prove only a temporary evil, or some 
ofTectual remedy against it be found. In Ireland, a large num- 
ber of the population, amounting to millions, depend, almost ex- 
clusively, upon the potato for subsistence. The ordinary allow 



CROPS. 259 

ance to a working Irishman is, from fourteen to sixteen pounds 
of potatoes per day. It cannot be denied, however, in a moral 
view, that potatoes to the Irish are an equivocal good. In order 
to improvement, man reqnires a constant and severe stimulus to 
exertion. The necessities of men are the excitements to indus- 
try and enterprise, and very often the foundation of their virtues. 
But what hope can be entertained for the improvement of per- 
sons content to live upon the meanest fare, and in circumstances 
of destitution barely compatible with existence, and to go on 
and marry, and rear children, with no expectation or ambition 
beyond that of a mud cabin, a peat fire, and a potato diet ? 

Next to potatoes and turnips, beets occupy a principal place 
in English cultivation. Of beets, the field cultivation is limited 
to the mangel-wurzel. These are cultivated in rows, upon ridges, 
similar to the cultivation of turnips, about thirty inches apart ; 
and though the seed is commonly dibbled in at six inches dis- 
tance in the rows, the plants are thinned out to a distance of one 
foot. Deep cultivation is always strongly recommended for all 
tap-rooted j)lants. An eminent farmer in Northamptonshire, 
after having furrowed and manured the furrows for his mangel- 
wurzel, as the wheels of the cart and the trampling of the horses 
tend to harden the bottom of the furrow, before the land is 
turned back upon it in order to form a ridge, passes down in 
the furrow with a miner, that he may loosen and deepen it. A 
miner is simply the colter of a plough, without the mould-board. 
He speaks of this as being attended with great advantage. No 
machine has yet been invented which may be safely trusted to 
drop the seed. A wheel with pegs of about two inches in length, 
and six inches apart, upon the outside of the wheel, which shall 
make holes in the ground as the wheel revolves, handles like 
those of a wheel-barrow being attached to it, is used to dibble 
the land, into which children, who follow, drop the seed, one 
being sufficient in each hole, as every capsule in fact contains 
four seeds. The seeds are then covered with the head of a rake 
or with the hand. The land between the rows should be kept 
loose by ploughing, and thrown upon the rows, but not upon the 
plants, whose nature it is to grow much out of ground. In 
the latter part of the season, the under leaves may be gathered 
and fed to milch cows, or sheep, or swine, with ?rcat advantage 



200 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

to the consumer, and, where the crown is left unbroken and 
only the lower leaves taken, without injury to the producer. 

Reports have been furnished me of crops of fifty-eight tons pei 
acre, and, in other cases, of forty-eight tons, and fifty-six tons, 
per acre ; this, of course, after they were topped and cleaned. 
These, however, are very extraordinary crops, the common 
yield being about thirty tons. They are much valued for 
milch cows, and for fatting cattle. Experiments have been 
made to test the value of mangel-wurzel compared with Swede 
turnips in the fattening of cattle. The experiments which have 
come under my knowledge — the estimate of the increase of 
weight of the animals experimented upon having been made 
from external measurement, and not in scales — do not appear to 
me decisive, but only indicative of considerable superiority in 
fattening properties of the mangel-wurzel over the Swedes. The 
yield of mangel-wurzel, per acre, under good cultivation, is con- 
siderably greater. Caution is to be used in giving them to 
milch cows, as they are apt to produce scouring. From this 
effect I have suffered in the free use of them with my own 
cows. It is strongly advised, likewise, not to use them until the 
spring or late in the winter ; and I have known farmers to keej: 
them sound and fresh into August. They are considered as not 
unfavorable to wheat, which may be sowed after them. The 
seed of the beet should be well soaked before sowing; and it is 
advised, in the event of transplanting them to fill up vacancies, 
not to place the plant lower in the ground than it formerly stood, 
as otherwise, if planted to the top, it will send out shoots from 
the top, and become scraggy or forked. 

Carrots are cultivated to some extent, and much valued. 
There is nothing, however, peculiar in the cultivation. The 
land should be deeply ploughed and highly manured. They 
are usually cultiv^ated on a flat surface ; but I am satisfied that 
the ridge cultivation at a distance of two feet, so as to plough 
between them, would be far preferable. The seed should be 
sprouted before sowing and mixed with sand, in order to avoid 
its being sown too thickly. If sowed on ridges, they will be 
much more easily cultivated and kept clean ; and they should be 
thinned out to the distance of six inches apart. The Belgian 
white carrot has come greatly into favor in England. A d«^ 



CROPS. 261 

tinguishcd farmer, in whose authority I place the utmost confi- 
dence, pronounces it as thirty per cent, more productive than the 
common carrots ; and I met with an eminent farmer who had 
grown thirty-one tons seventeen hundred weight upon an acre, 
and whose crops averaged twenty-four tons per acre. Another 
farmer informed me, that he usually obtained twenty-five tons 
per acre. A farmer, at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, who is lay- 
ing the foundation of one of the most splendid agricultural es- 
tablishments in England, and whom I had the pleasure of visit- 
ing, obtained a crop of a hundred tons from three acres. Much 
of this was due to the liberal application of guano. Another 
farmer reports having grown upon four acres four thousand eight 
hundred bushels of the white carrot, or twelve hundred bushels 
per acre, which he fed to his horses, ten pounds each per day, 
and to his neat cattle, with very great advantage. A strong 
prejudice exists against the use of white carrots for horses, as 
injuring their eyes ; and the farmer first mentioned above thinks 
it not without foundation, believing that his own horses had suf- 
fered from that cause. 

With respect to the common red beet, or the sugar beet, and 
the parsnip, I have not seen them under field cultivation in 
England, though the parsnip is said to be largely cultivated, as 
feed for stock, in the channel islands. The sugar beet is re- 
ported to yield abundantly, and to furnish a more nutritious 
food, better for fattening, and for milch cows, than the mangel- 
wurzel ; yet the former has not supplanted the latter. The 
Jerusalem artichoke is often served at table, and is approved by 
many as food for stock, but is not so palatable or so nutritious 
as the potato. It grows, however, without much care, and in 
almost any ground, besides continuing itself in the ground from 
year to year. Under favorable circumstances, it is said to yield 
five hundred bushels to an acre, — a statement which I do not 
give from personal observation, nor receive without some dis- 
trust. 

10. Cabbages. — Cabbages have been cultivated to a consid- 
erable extent in England. There are many varieties ; but my 
province lies only with those whicli are cultivated for the feed 
of stock ; and this embraces two principal kinds, — those with 
spreading leaves, from which the leaves are plucked, and tl\BH 



262 



eurojPean agriculture. 



others produced, and those which form compact and solid heads 
such as the drum-head, and the savoy, weighing, in some cases, 
upwards of forty pounds each, though such must be considered 
as remarkable. In Scotland, they are rarely cultivated as a field 
crop. In the south and most temperate parts of England, they 
may be safely left in the ground, uncovered, through the winter. 

The usual course is to plant them in a nursery, and then re- 
move them to a field ; and the largest kinds require ample room, 
and may be planted at three or four feet distance each way. In 
transplanting, a dibble is commonly used; but, in such case, the 
root is often doubled up and crowded into the hole, to the injury 
of the plant, A better way is, to plough a furrow, and, taking 
the plants singly, cut off a portion of the top, and dipping the 
root ends in some liquid, lay them at proper distances in the 
furrow, and then cover them with a plough ; having a third per- 
son to follow, who may relieve any plants which may have 
been too deeply covered, and pressing the earth against the roots 
of those plants which require it. 

Cabbages are deemed most excellent food for sheep and stock, 
though some persons consider them as of too laxative a nature 
for cattle — a fault which would be corrected by an ample supply 
of meal, or some dry feed, given in conjunction with the cabbage 
Oil cake is given with them to fattening sheep, with extraordinary 
advantage. 

Cabbages are considered as great exhausters of the soil ; but 
where they are consumed upon the farm, they undoubtedly 
make a full compensation for what they have abstracted. At 
Ockham Park, in Surrey, the seat of the Earl of Lovelace, which 
I had the pleasure of visiting, they have been cultivated, for 
several years, in connection with a crop of beans. The beans 
are planted in double lines, four inches apart, and with an inter- 
val of three feet to the next row. The ground between the 
rows of beans is then carefully cultivated, until the time of set- 
ting out the cabbages, which are then planted, two feet apart, in 
the rows. The beans are harvested in August, and the cabbages 
are then ploughed and cultivated, and are ready to be fed off in 
December. He thinks that he gets as much feed from the land 
by this crop as he should obtain from a crop of common turnips, 
though not as much as he would obtain from a crop of swedes ; 
and the crop of beans is not diminished. Indeed, he adds that 



CROPS. 263 

the crop has increased since he began the practice, having been 
at the ontset, for five years before the combination of the crops, 
about thirty-five bushels to the acre, and, for five years after uni- 
ting the crops, at the rate of forty-one bushels per acre. 

Our winters in the North United States would present insuper- 
able obstacles to the preservation of cabbages, to any great ex- 
tent, as winter food for stock; but the same objections would 
not hold at the south and in the Middle States. The cultivation, 
however, cannot be said to extend itself in England, the Swedish 
turnip being generally preferred. 

Some years since, an English farmer, by the name of George 
Adams, published what he terms " A New System of Agricul- 
ture and Feeding Stock," for which he obtained the king's let- 
ters patent. The pamphlet, though containing only about thirty 
pages octavo, was sold at a guitiea a copy. I caused it to be 
republished, some years since, in the United States, — not from any 
confidence in his plan as being feasible, but as suggesting some 
hints as to the amount of produce possible to be obtained from 
an acre, which might induce inquiry and experiment, and, in 
that way, contribute to agricultural improvement. As the work 
now is scarcely known on either side of the water, I will tran- 
scribe a few passages, which I think will interest my readers. 

'* By pursuing," he says, " the following directions, a single 
acre of land will produce a crop sufficient to feed, in one year, 
twenty-four beasts, or two hundred and forty sheep." 

" In September, or sooner, let your land be well manured and 
properly ploughed, so as to raise a good deal of fine mould ; 
then plant one third of an acre of the land with the large sort 
of early cabbage plant, viz., the late York or sugar-loaf; one 
third more, in February or March, with the same sort of cabbage 
plant ; and the remaining third of the acre, in February or 
March, with the ox or drum-headed cabbage plant. If the land 
be good, I would recommend that the plants should be set in 
rows three feet wide, and two feet between each plant, that is, 
three plants in every square yard. Upon this plan, an acre of 
groinid will require fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty 
plants, reckoning five score to the hundred; but if the land be 
poor, it will be advisable to set the plants thicker proportion- 
ably, according to the grower's judgment of the quality of his 
land. By the beginning of June, the first crop of cabbages will 



264 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

be in perfection. Tlien put either six beasts or sixty sheep, in 
the manner here directed, according to tlie plan of the movable 
houses, herein annexed, either for cattle or sheep. Let the cab- 
bages and leaves be carefully cut off, leaving the cabbage stalks 
cut across at the top, to grow again. The cabbages, upon good 
land, may be expected to average fifteen pounds apiece, which 
will be, upon the acre, two hundred and seventeen thousand eight 
hundred pounds, or one hundred and eight tons eighteen hundred 
weight, at five score to the hundred weight. Allow to each beast, 
or ten sheep, two hundred pounds every day and night, which will 
be twelve hundred pounds a day and night, for six beasts, or sixty 
sheep ; in eighty-four days, or twelve weeks, these will be fat. 
Then put up six other beasts, or sixty more sheep, which will 
fatten in the same time and manner, viz., at the end of the half 
year. Eighty cabbages will have been consumed daily, amount- 
ing to fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty cabbages, just 
the number planted upon the acre, which, taken at fifteen pounds 
apiece, amounts to one hundred and eight tons eighteen hundred 
weight, at five score to the hundred weight; so that tlie feed of 
twelve beasts, or one hundred and twenty sheep, stands as under. 

Tons. Cwt. 

For 84 days, or 12 weeks, 6718 cabbages, at 15 lbs. apiece, 50 8 

" 84 " " 12 " 6718 " " " " " 50 8 

" 13^ " " 2 " 1084 " " '' " " 8 2 

18U " " 26 " 14520 " '* " " " 108 18 

As soon as you begin to clear off a few rows of cabbages, after 
the 1st of June, spread the dung and urine carefully over the 
ground, leaving all the cabbage stalks, which will soon sprout 
again ; then with a small hoe work the ground regularly over, 
so as to cover the manure, and sow turnip seed amongst your 
cabbage stalks, as you clear off the cabbages, and continue to do 
so till you have gone all over the ground the first time. About 
the 1st of November you will have another crop of keep as good 
as the first ; and then, as you clear off all the cabbage sprouts and 
turnips, you must again properly apply your manure all over the 
land, as before, which is now either to be ploughed or dug, and 
planted as at first. Thus you will have a regular succession of 
good keep, and if the winter's produce be what may be expected 
from good management, the same acre of land will feed, in one 



CROPS. 



265 



year, twenty-four beasts, or two hundred and forty sheep. This, 
like all other crops, will, of course, vary with the season ; but, if 
the weight here mentioned be produced, the number of cattle 
above stated will hardly get through it. In case of a failure, in 
the winter, a little hay or corn may be given to supply the de- 
ficiency." 

Such is the author's account of his scheme, in his own words. 
It will be seen that he goes into a fraction of time, to meet the 
exact amount of keep v/hich he proposes to obtain from the land. 
He proposes, as a part of his plan, to keep his beasts and sheep 
in movable houses or folds, so that they may be placed directly 
by the feed which is grown for them, and that the most careful 
provision should be made for the saving of all their manure. 

I shall not discuss the practicableness of his plan. I have no 
confidence in it to the extent to which he proposes to carry it. 
But it shows the author's strong conviction of the advantages of 
soiling, and it leads to that great question, the full answer to 
which has not yet been approached. What are the productive 
powers of an acre of land ? That cabbages in the Northerii 
United States cannot be relied upon for winter feed, except in 
a very limited degree, is certain ; but where the plants are for- 
warded by artificial heat in the spring, they may be made to 
furnish a large amount of autumn feed, and may,, in many cases, 
be cultivated to great advantage. Any methods by which the 
farmers in the old states, near the great markets, can increase the 
means of enriching their lands by the growth of products to be 
advantageously consumed upon their farms, certainly deserve 
consideration. They may purchase manure in the cities; but 
even if the cost of the manure, at first, is small, — and in most 
cases it is otherwise, — yet the expense and trouble of transporta- 
tion are always considerable and vexatious. Whether it shall 
be by the production of milk, by the fattening of swine, of sheep, 
or of cattle, must be determined by local and individual circum- 
stances. The proximity to a quick market in such cases will 
always, in respect to many products, give the farmer in the old 
states, and near the large cities, peculiar advantages. I have 
some doubts, however, whether, for the purposes of soiling, for 
milk, or for fattening, any product can be found equal to that of 
Indian corn cut green. The cultivation of a variety of feed may 
be advisable, as in the event of the failure :f one kind of crop 
VOL. II. 23 



266 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

another kind may succeed ; and that animals thrive better upon 
a variety" of food than when confined to a single sort is a point 
well establw'ied. 

11. Rape. — This crop is seldom, within my observation, cul- 
tivated for seed, but as a green crop, for the purpose of feeding 
sheep, which are soiled or folded upon it. In some parts of the 
country it is sown in August, to be fed early in the ensuing 
spring ; but it would not endure our winters. It is most gen- 
erally sown in May, and at successive times, so as to provide a 
continuance of the feed, and comes into eating in about three 
months after being sown. It is sometimes sown broadcast, and 
left vmder a slovenly cultivation, to take its chance ; but it is ad- 
visable to sow it in drills about twelve inches apart, and then the 
weeds may be extirpated, and it may be kept clean by the hoe. 
In such case about four pounds of seed are sown Ufion an acre. 
Sheep, being folded npon it, gain flesh rapidly; and tlie ground, 
in tliat case, is much enriched for a crop of wheat, or other grain, 
which may be sown after it is thus fed off. It must be com- 
pletely fed ofl" before it passes out of blossom. I was told, in 
Lincolnshire, that the ears of lambs which are thus fed upon it 
are often made so sore by some acrid matter which proceeds from 
it, as sometimes to lose their ears ; but whether this was stated 
for the benefit of my credulity or not, I am not certain. I can 
only say that, if — which I am not willing to believe — it was told 
me with that view, the relater would himself deserve to have 
his own ears gently clipped. The ear is said to swell, ulcerate, 
and drop off. Another farmer, on whose opinion I place great 
reliance, speaks of this crop as too heating to the blood of young 
sheep, and advises, where they appear affected by it, to bleed 
them in the nose and give them salt. I always regard a preven- 
tive as much more valuable than a remedy ; and confess, if such 
were likely to be the usual effects of feeding upon this plant,, I 
should be very cautious in advising its cultivation. It is much 
grown, however, for the purpose of feed, in Yorkshire and Liti- 
colnshire, and these objections were not frequently made to it. 

When this plant is grown for seed, the yield is represented as 
about thirty bushels per acre ; but it is then deemed a great ex- 
hauster of the soil, and will not bear a repetition under five or 
six years. Cole and rape, though often spoken of as the- same 



CROPS. 267 

thing, differ from each other — the cole growing stronger, and 
ripening its seed much later. When grown for seed, they are 
cultivated in the same manner, being sown in drills, and the 
plants thinned to five or six inches apart, and carefully weeded 
and hoed. The production of seed from cole is more than from 
rape. When fed upon the land by sheep folded upon them, they 
enrich the land ; but in leases a clause is often inserted forbidding 
their cultivation for seed, because of their exhaustion of the soil. 
In passing through Lincolnshire, I could not help admiring the 
sagacity of a dog whose business it was, in the character of a 
rural police-officer, to keep a flock of sheep upon a field of rape, 
and away from an adjoining field of turnips. 1 do not know 
that this sagacity would have been increased had he been with- 
out his posterior appendage, and stood upon two legs instead of 
four. The learned author of the "Vestiges of Creation" 
would probably have pronounced him fur advanced in the trans- 
ition state. 

12. Mustard. — I found mustard cultivated in some parts of 
the country, but not to a large extent for the seed. It may be 
sown either broadcast or in drills, and is gathered by being 
shaken by hand into a sheet in the field. A good crop is esti- 
mated at twenty-eight bushels per acre. A strong prejudice 
exists against the black mustard, as the seeds remain a long time 
in the ground, and are with difficulty eradicated. In many 
leases the cultivation of it is forbidden. 

The white mustard is not liable to the same objection ; and 
this is often cultivated for the purpose of folding sheep upon it, 
and is said to yield a better crop than rape for this purpose. It 
has been sown in May, and eaten off in July ; it has been sown 
after a crop of oats, and eaten off in October. In all these cases, 
when fed on the ground or ploughed in, it has proved a great 
enricher of the land. The amount of seed sown has varied from 
seven pounds to sixteen pounds per acre. It is recommended by 
some farmers for folding ewe sheep upon, in autumn, as indirectly 
assisting the increase of the flock. Neither of these crops requires 
very high manuring ; and they are often grown, with tolerable suc- 
cess, upon land of moderate fertility, never contravening, however, 
the inviolable rule, that fire is not to be made without fuel, and 
that good land, good cultivation, and good manuring, are the only 
certain foundation for expecting good crops of any kind. 



268 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

13. Chiccory. — Chiccory is cultivated in some parts of the 
country. It was first introduced as feed for cattle and sheep, its 
leaves being abundant, and very succulent. It could, for such 
purpose, be cut once the first year, and four or five times a sea- 
son, after it became established. It was not, however, found 
superior, as green feed, to other plants cultivated for this pur- 
pose, and it was thought to give an unpleasant taste to the milk 
and butter. It is now, however, cultivated almost exclusively 
for the roots, which are used for the adulteration of coffee, and 
many persons think with advantage. I am not of that number. 
The land on which it is to be cultivated must be rich and 
highly manured, as it is important, where the roots are to be 
used for this purpose, that they should be forced as much as 
possible the first season, as they become too old and hard in the 
second year. Chiccory is to be sown in April, like carrots, in 
drills, kept clear of weeds, and the plants thinned out to a 
distance of six inches in the rows. In September, the leaves 
are taken off, and the plants dug with a fork : they are then 
washed and split by hand, and kiln-dried, and sold to other 
factors, who cause them to be burnt and ground like coffee, 
which, in that case, they entirely resemble. They greatly 
deepen the color of the liquid, when prepared as coffee ; and, 
when mixed in the proportion of a fifth, they communicate no 
unpleasant taste. Chiccory is deemed very exhausting to the 
soil, and liquid mainire is applied to it, while growing, with 
great advantage. 

The cultivation of woad was pursued to a considerable extent 
in the same neighborhood ; but as this, together with madder, will 
come more fully under view in my observations on continental 
husbandry, I for the present pass them over. 

14. Lucern. — This plant is cultivated to some extent for 
the purpose of soiling, and indeed could not be expected to be 
cultivated as a field crop. It is undoubtedly a much superior 
forage to vetches or tares, and is more productive than clover, 
not yielding more weight at a single cutting, but growing much 
faster, and therefore may be cut more frequently. But it is far less 
cultivated than either vetches or clover, perhaps for the reasons 
that lucern, though it will bear it even the first year, does not 
come into a perfect state for cutting until the third year ; that it 



CROPS. 269 

squires a good deal of labor at first in keeping down the weeds ; 
id that it does not take its place in any rotation of crops, it 
Doing expected to occupy the ground for a length of years, where 
It is once planted. 

All agree that it affords a most excellent feed for horses or milch 
cows ; and it is advised that, after being cut, it should be kept 
over a day before it is given to cattle, as, in that case, it will un- 
dergo a degree of fermentation, which will prevent its being in- 
jurious to them. The yield of an acre of good luceru, it is said, 
will fully keep four horses from May to October. The time for 
cutting it is when it is in flower ; and, though it is almost always 
given green, yet it makes excellent fodder when converted into 
hay. Some persons advise that the first cuttiug should be before 
the plant comes into flower, believing the succeeding crops will 
be more vigorous for this early cutting. It is commonly be- 
lieved that a plant is more nutritious when in flower than at 
any previous stage of its growth ; though this conclusion is not 
conformable to some of the deductions of Sinclair, in his experi- 
ments upon grasses at Woburn. 

It requires a deep, rich, aud dry soil, as it sends down its tap- 
root far into the ground, and in time of drought draws moisture 
from a great depth, which keeps it in a green state when most 
grasses fade and are burnt up. The ground should be deeply 
ploughed, or, better, should be spaded or trenched, and thoroughly 
drained, as a clayey, wet, or retentive soil is unfavorable to it. 
Great pains must be taken to keep it clean from weeds. 

It is cultivated in two ways — either by being sown broadcast, 
in which case, where it is kept thoroughly clean from weeds for 
two or three years, it will acquire such a hold as to dispossess 
the weeds, but will be benefited by being rather heavily har- 
rowed in the spring ; or it may be sown in drills about twenty 
inches apart ; in that case, it may be cleaned by a horse hoe or 
scufHer, and be effectually protected from other plants or weeds. 
When sown broadcast, it is advised to sow about sixteen pounds 
of seed to an acre, and this may be sown with barley or rye ; 
but when sown in drills, ten pounds of seed are deemed suffi- 
cient. The broadcast method is likely to give the best crops. 

It is said that it will not endure severe frosts, and consequently 
is not suited to a cold climate ; but I have known it cultivated 
successfully for many years by the late excellent " farmer's 
23* 



270 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

friend," John Lowell, Esq., near Boston. The great impedi- 
ment generally found to its cnltivation is the difficulty of keep- 
ing it from weeds ; but the sowing it in drills will give an ad- 
vantage in this matter. I have no means of comparing it, in 
point of value or product, with the Italian rye grass, of which I 
have given an account ; but its reputation has long been estab- 
lished as one of the most valuable plants which can be cnlti- 
vated for the purposes of soiling. It may be expected to last for 
eight years, and some persons assert a longer period, and will be 
benefited by occasional top dressings. 

Lucern has been cultivated, with great success, by a farmer 
of the name of Rodwell. whose account I think will be read 
with interest. 

"My growth of lucern this year, (1841,) in a field of eight 
acres of sandy soil, with a dry, sandy loam for its subsoil, being 
the third year's growth, (the seed having been sown, twenty 
pounds per acre, 1838, by a Bonnet's seed-engine, with a crop 
of barley,) produced me, in its first mowing, (which commenced 
May 24th,) six weeks' entire support for thirty horses, keep- 
ing them in good condition and good health, while in con- 
stant employment. The second mowing, begun July 3d, fed 
me twenty horses for six weeks ; and the third, begun Septem- 
ber 15th, supported thirteen horses fourteen days; after which, 
the autumnal feeding with sheep was equivalent in value to the 
expenses of cleaning, &c., in the previous spring, which was 
effected by the extensive use of the Pinlayson harrow — a process 
necessary every second or third year, if upon soils inclined to 
grass. The only manure used upon this crop has been soot, at 
about thirty bushels per acre, applied twice since the sowing 
in 1838."* 

15. Sainfoin. — This plant is cultivated in localities where 
a chalk or calcareous soil prevails, both for soiling and pasturage. 
It is sometimes, likewise, made into hay, and forms excellent 
fodder. It is universally understood that a calcareous or lime- 
stone soil is most congenial to its growth, and one must hesitate 
in distrusting the lessons of experience ; but the best crop which I 
have seen of it — and an admirable crop it was — I found upon an 

* Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iii. p. 238. 



CROPS. 271 

extremely rich loam, which, from its high cultivation, might be 
called a vegetable garden mould, and to which no lime had been 
applied, and none certainly was apparent. 

It is a highly-productive plant, with small, pointed leaves, 
rather coarse brandies and stem, and bearing a small blue flower. 
It may be cut twice in a season, and then fed, and will yield, 
under good cultivation, from one and a half to two tons of dried 
fodder to an acre ; but it is not so productive as lucern. It is 
not so apt to become heated as clover, not being as succulent : 
it will grow where clover will not grow ; and drawing its nour- 
ishment from a greater depth, it is less liable to sufter from 
drought. It may be cut, and afterwards fed off by sheep the 
first year of its growth ; but it is not in the best condition for 
mowing until about the third year after planting, and then ii 
will continue for eight or ten years. I have said one of its prin- 
cipal uses is for soiling, and for this it is much esteemed. Though 
it may not be so valuable as lucern, clover, Italian rye grass, or 
Indian corn, where the latter can be grown, yet there is an ob- 
vious advantage in a variety of food ; it is more agreeable to the 
animals themselves, and some plants will flourish in some seasons, 
and some soils, in which others would fail. I have seen it cul- 
tivated in New England in one case only, and that not with 
much success ; the winter was deemed too severe for it. 

The amount of seed sown to an acre is four bushels in the 
chaff"; and it maybe sown with barley, or alone. The seed is 
of very uncertain quality, and should be tried in a pot. Sainfoin 
is a great exhauster of the soil, Avhen suffered to ripen its seed. 

Lord Essex gives an account of curing a crop of sainfoin, 
which was cut on Monday and Tuesday of the last week in 
June, when in full flower. It was once turned on Wednesday, 
and carried and stacked on Thursday and Friday. The weather 
was dry and hot, but the hay was still so green, that much mois- 
ture exuded upon pressm-e. It was stacked with alternate layers 
of oat straw. It came out in the finest condition, and the inter- 
leaved straw was much improved. It is well known that, with 
us, clover is often cut in the morning, turned once merely, in a 
hot sun, and then packed away, the different layers being well 
salted, at the rate of more than a peck of salt to the load. In 
this way, where the moisture proceeds from the sap, and not 



272 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

from rain coming upon it, I have known it effectually preserved 
and furnishing an excellent fodder. 

There are different kinds of sainfoin, some of them distin 
guished from others by a greater earliness. I saw, in the same 
field, side by side, and where both kinds had been once mown 
at the same time, a second crop coming on, where, in one case, 
the plant was in full flower, and, in the adjoining land, the plants 
showed no signs of flowering. I know no means of distinguish- 
ing one from the other in such a case, but by actual trial. The 
farmers who cultivate this crop successfully esteem it very 
highly. The Messrs. Lawson, of Edinburgh, speak of having, 
in 1833, introduced from France the double yielding sainfoin, — a 
very luxuriant growing variety; but I have not seen it. 

16. Crimson Clover, ( Trifolium Incarnatum.) — This is an 
annual plant, presenting, in its blossoming, a beautiful crimson 
flower in the shape of a cone. It is a very productive plant, and 
is principally valuable as green feed ; made into hay, it is deemed 
superior to the common clovers. Here it is sometimes sown 
upon a wheat or grain stubble, the stubble being simply har- 
rowed, and the seed sown ; and it is then bush-harrowed and 
rolled. This gives a good crop for green feed the ensuing 
spring. It is said to be a fortnight earlier than lucern. Few 
things in the vegetable world present a richer appearance than a 
field of crimson clover in full flower. It is sometimes drilled at 
the distance of eight inches in the rows. The quantity of seed 
is from eighteen to twenty pounds to an acre when sown broad- 
cast ; less would be required when drilled. Its chief value is its 
quick return ; as, when sown in autumn, it may be mowed so 
early the next season, as to leave a favorable opportunity for 
fallowing the land for wheat. In this respect, however, I cannot 
perceive that it has any advantage over our common June clover • 
and I should have great distrust of its endurance under the severe 
frosts of New England. I have tried it myself upon a smal 
scale, but then it was sown early in the spring. 

17. WniN, Furze, or Gorse, {Ulcx EiiropcEUS.) — This is a 
coarse, evergreen, prickly shrub, growing, in many cases, to a 
height of some feet, propagating itself, and spreading over large 



CROPS. 273 

extents of ground which are left uncultivated, or kept merely as 
preserves for game. It is singularly productive ; it requires to 
be gathered only as it is wanted to be used; and, when bruised, 
it furnishes a most nutritious food. I shall give the directions 
of one farmer in Worcestershire, who finds his account in culti- 
vating it pretty largely, and whose excellent farming I had the 
pleasure of inspecting. 

It is used more extensively in Wales than in any other part 
of the kingdom. It proves excellent food for horses and cows. 
I have not learned that it has been used for sheep. The yield of 
it is represented, even under unfavorable circumstances, to be from 
eight to twelve tons, per acre, of green feed, and where the soil 
is favorable, double that quantity. It may be cut in a year after 
being sown ; but it is deemed advisable not to commence cut- 
ting it until it is two years old ; and then it may be cut every 
year, and requires no manuring. Some prefer that it should be 
cropped not oftener than once in two years ; but in that case, the 
plant becomes woody and hard, and is with difficulty cut by a 
scythe. 

There are two kinds of gorse ; but that which is called the 
French gorse, is much preferred ; the other kind, being shorter, 
browner, and much less succulent, is used only in times of ex- 
treme scarcity. It is advised to be sown in March or April, 
and either broadcast, or drilled at a distance in the rows of from 
eighteen to twenty-four inches. When sov/n on a side-hill, the 
rows should be made oblique, rather than directly up and down 
the hill. The young plants should be kept carefully weeded, as 
weeds and couch grass are the great enemies to the successful 
cultivation of the plant ; and they should be protected from 
cattle. Sand, lime, ashes, and cinders, are applied as manure 
to the plant; but it grows well without manure. The intelligent 
farmer, in Worcestershire, whose farm I had the pleasure of in- 
specting, — Richard Spooner, Esq., M. P., — grows it upon an 
old woodland, cleared up, the soil of which is partly a burning 
gravel, partly a strong clay, but very dry at bottom, and hilly. 
The product of half an acre of this land is, on an average, suf- 
ficient to keep a cow twenty weeks. On rich, loamy, dry land, 
he informed me that, in his opinion, double the quantity might 
be grown. He has now been in the habit of using it more than 
twenty years. 



274 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

He sows it as he would clover seed, with a crop of barley or 
oats, and it is fit to cut the November twelve months after sow- 
ing. He mows it afterwards, every year during the winter, as 
Avanted, with a common scythe, close to the ground. On good, 
dry land, he cuts from seven to ten tons per acre. His principal 
use of it is for his cows ; three bushels and a half per day is 
suflicient for a cow. 

It is first cut through a common chaff'-cutter, and then bruised 
in a mill similar to a cider-mill for grinding apples, the revolving 
fiuted wheels, or nuts, being of iron. He has four-and-twenty 
cows in one house. Besides the gorse, they are allowed one 
hundred weight of hay among the whole, — being about four and 
a half pounds of hay to each cow, — and eight bushels of Swedish 
turnips, or about twenty pounds of Swedish turnips, to each cow 
per day. On this, dairy cows are kept in excellent condition, 
and the butter is remarkably good ; fattening-cows on the same 
allowance will fatten fast. When Swedes arc scarce, he substi- 
tutes about four pounds of oil cake, per day, to each cow ; and as 
the fattening-cows get forward, he increases the quantity of oil 
cake gradually, never, however, exceeding twelve pounds of oil 
cake, per day, to cows of a large size, and that only for the last 
month. He advises that the gorse should be well ground, and 
salt mixed with it, at the rate of four ounces, each cow, per day. 

In the communication with which he has favored me, he adds, 
that "it requires no manure, but in its consumption creates a 
great deal. It will grow on poor, hilly land, if dry, which will 
not pay for cultivating. When once sown, and well rooted, it 
yields a great quantity of food for cattle, at a small expense." He 
has cut over the same ground now for many years. He mows it 
as soon as the grass feed ceases, and it lasts until the grass comes 
again. If there is an appearance of snow, he mows a consider- 
able quantity beforehand, and it will keep, laid loosely down in 
the yard ; but it must be bruised as it is wanted, for it will not 
keep after being bruised, not even over night. 

Furze is prepared, in some cases, by being cut in a common 
chafl"-machine, and then passed through two revolving and 
matched cylinders of iron, like the nuts of a cider-mill ; or it is 
cut, and then laid upon the ground, and rolled by a stone wheel 
with a broad, flat rim, somewhat resembling the wheel employed 
by tanners for crushing or grinding their bark. In some cases, two 



CROPS. 275 

such wheels are fixed to the same axle, which, of course, expedites 
the work, and both are carried round by a horse or donkey. 

An Irish farmer describes his mode of feeding with gorse as 
follows : " Horses eat it with great avidity, and thrive well on 
it. I give each working horse a bucket of prepared gorse in the 
morning, before going out ; at dinner time, a feed of boiled 
potatoes ; and at night, two baskets of gorse ; neither hay nor 
oats. Cow-feeding is different ; at daylight in the morning, the 
cattle are driven from their stalls to water — if possible, a running 
stream. Gorse, if crushed over night, and allowed to lie in a 
heap, would ferment before morning ; the cattle are, therefore, 
supplied with a feed of mangel-wurzel, while the gorse is under- 
going preparation. After breakfast, (ten o'clock,) they get a feed 
of gorse • — as much as they will eat, (should any remain in the 
trough, it is taken away;) another feed at two o'clock; at four, 
are again driven to water ; and at six, get a large feed to last all 
night. Cattle will not eat so large a bulk of gorse as of other 
food, it being so rich that a less quantity sulHces. Gorse, after 
being once established, requires neither tillage, manuring, nor 
weeding, producing the most nutritious food without imparting 
any unpleasant flavor to the milk, which is rich and creamy. 
Twenty acres of gorse would support one hundred head of 
cattle, for the winter six months, without any other feed, save 
the morning feed of mangel-wurzel, turnips, or potatoes."* 

Three modes of sowing it are prescribed — the first, that of 
sowing it broadcast, when, by some cultivators, seven or eight, by 
others, twenty pounds of seed are advised to be used. Others 
recommend to sow it in drills, eighteen to twenty-four inches 
apart, when, of course, a much less quantity of seed will suffice. 
Others advise to sow it first in a seed bed, and transplant it, 
making the drills as above, and setting the plants six inches 
asunder in the drills. As the seed is a long time in germinating, 
and much, on this account, is liable to be lost, it is advised to 
soak the seed four or five days before sowing, and then let 
it remain a week or more in a heap, being careful to turn it 
frequently, to prevent fermentation. The transplanting must be 
as early as practicable, that the plants may get a sure footing for 



Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi. part 11, p. 536. 



276 EUROPKAN AGRICULTURE. 

the winter. Four pounds of seed will be sufficient to supply- 
plants for transplanting. 

Having seen the value of this plant, for feeding purposes, on 
the well-managed farm to which I have referred, I have gone 
thus at large into its cultivation, believing that the account 
would be interesting to my American friends. How far its cul- 
tivation can be recommended in the United States, experience 
only can decide. Our severe winters, and deep snows, would 
be much against it in the Northern States ; but there are localities 
in which, undoubtedly, its cultivation would be beneficial. The 
obtaining a green succulent feed for our stock in winter, wouU 
be a most valuable acquisition. The labor required to prepare i 
would prove a serious objection in a country where labor is difficub 
to be procured, and where the almost universal practice is hurry 
and despatch, and things are but too often only half done. 

18. Clovers and Grasses. — The introduction of cultivated 
grasses, though not recent, is, properly speaking, an improve- 
ment of modern husbandry. In British agriculture, various 
kinds have been introduced; but I shall speak of those which ar<i 
the most prominent. For the great mass of my readers, botanical 
descriptions and distinctions would be useijEy and misplaced 
and I shall, therefore, refer to these grasses in terms which are 
familiar. 

In the cultivation of thera, two courses are pursued — the 
one, that of laying down land to permanent pasture or meadow ; 
the other, that of giving them their place for one, two, or three 
years in a regular rotation. The subject of breaking up perma- 
nent pasture, or long-established mowing fields, has been much 
discussed and controverted : and the decision of the question will 
depend on many qualifications. The English are strongly opposed 
to the breaking up of such lands ; the Scotch keep very little 
land, which is capable of being brought under the plough, in per- 
manent grass. Undoubtedly, the largest profit might be obtained 
from breaking up the land, and letting it take its place in the 
regular course of crops ; but the difficulty to be contended with, 
where it is to be brought back into permanent pasture or mow- 
ing, is that of getting again a firm and substantial sward. This 
is not so difficult as is supposed ; for I have often seen, where the 
land is well cullivatcd, and not too severely cropped, and is laid 



» CROPS. 277 

aown with a sufficient quantity and variety of seeds, a sward 
produced by the second year sufficiently compact and strong. 
One great advantage which would arise from cuUivating lands 
in grass would be, to use up as manure the roots, fragments, and 
remains, of the grass sward, which have been some time accumu- 
iatingj and which are in themselves the natural means of enrich- 
ing the land. The produce of such land in grass is generally 
much inferior in value to what it would be in a regular rotation. 
Where, however, it lies in the immediate neighborhood of large 
cities, from which plenty of manure for top-dressing can be pro- 
cured, at a reasonable expense, the breaking it up might, with 
much more reason, be objected to. It may be said, likewise, 
excepting where it is grown for the market, that hay is in much 
less request in England than with us. Here turnips or other 
succulent food is in abundance ; chopped straw is substituted for 
hay ; and cattle are fatted, and horses maintained, wholly upon 
turnips and straw. The system pursued on the model farm of 
Lord Ducie, in Gloucestershire, is, to have no' land in permanent 
grass, but to bring every portion of the farm under an estab- 
lished rotation of cropping. The same system is pursued in 
those districts of what may well be called model farming, the 
county of Northumberland, on the border, and the Lothians, in 
Scotland. 

The expediency of breaking up grass or pasture lands, and 
converting them into arable land, can only be determined by va- 
rious considerations, and many of them of a local nature. Many 
of the lands in England, now devoted to the pasturage of sheep, 
and yielding a very scanty herbage, the soil being very thin, 
upon a stratum of chalk, and the aspect exposed, would, if bro- 
ken up, produce very scanty crops ; and it would require many 
years to restore them again as pasture lands. There are other 
lands, too, of a sandy character, now yielding in pasture very 
little feed, which would scarcely repay the cultivation, and per- 
haps be even more impoverished by it. The dairy farmers, too, 
are generally persuaded — perhaps a mere prejudice — that good 
cheese can be made only from old pasture that has been for years 
undisturbed. Nor can it bq safely recommended to break up grass 
land now yielding a tolerable crop o'f hay, unless the farmer has 
the determination and means of improving it by thorough-drain- 
ing and manuring, lest it should be left in a much worse state 
VOL. 11. 24 



278 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

than he found it. Indeed, it will be found, in many cases, ar 
enterprise, of which the result, though often beneficial, may dis- 
appoint the farmer, and which is not to be entered upon with- 
out judgment and practical skill, and a calculation of the re- 
sources within reach for ameliorating the land, and increasing 
its productiveness. 

In laying down lands to permanent grass, it is advised to sow 
large quantities of seed, — from thirty to forty pounds, — and those 
of a great variety. In the rotation, the principal plants culti- 
vated are the clovers, and the rye and orchard grass, or cocksfoot. 

What is called the coio-clover is a permanent variety, and 
valued more for being fed or depastured, than for being made 
into hay. The common red clover, well known in the United 
States, is that which is cultivated in the rotation. This is a 
biennial; audit is, in general, advised to feed it the first year, and 
to mow it for hay the second year. I have never seen it so large 
in England as I have seen it at home, which I am inclined to 
believe arises from their sowing a much greater quantity of seed 
to the acre than we are accustomed to sow. The quality of the 
hay is certainly much better, where it is smaller and finer, than 
with us. Two kinds appear to be cultivated here, as with us — 
the one resembling what is called our northern clover, a coarse 
and large variety, and the other, what is called our southern or 
June clover, a fine variety, and well known and valued by our 
Connecticut River farmers. I have already spoken of the 
French red or crimson clover, (trifolium incaTiiatum.) The 
yellow clover is not valued, though sometimes sown in a mix- 
ture of grasses. The Dutch clover is greatly esteemed for pas- 
turage, and, in favorable situations, produces the richest feed 
possible. The white clover, though excellent as a variety, is 
not considered the most valuable as a pasture grass ; and an 
objection is made to it, where it too much abounds, that it is apt 
most severely to scour the cattle. 

The making of clover hay, in a climate so variable, or rather 
so certain, ordinarily, to abound in moisture, requires skill and 
care. It is never tossed about and spread, but simply turned, and 
made up, first into small handfuls, and afterwards into cocks ; 
and it sometimes receives many heavy rains without being as 
much damaged as we should suppose. The low temperature 
prevents the fermentation which would be likely to take place 



CHOPS. 279 

with us. The cocks, or bunches, are never spread or scattered, 
but sia'-.i^ly turned ; and the greatest care is taken that it be not 
packed ar/ey in the stack when wet. It is often in the stack 
interleaved with straw, which is supposed to answer the double 
purpose, that of saving the clover from heat and mould, and that 
of improving the straw for cattle feed, as in this way it imbibes 
the odor, and perhaps some of the nutritious qualities, of the 
clover. It was matter of surprise to some farmers, when I in- 
formed them, as I have already remarked, that clover hay, with 
us, was sometimes mowed in the morning, and carried into the 
barn in the evening of the same day; there, being salted when 
stowed away, with about a peck of salt to a ton, it has kept per- 
fectly well, and come out in the spring, green and bright, with- 
out mould or smoke. The climate of England would hardly 
admit of this; and the making of hay, especially in Scotland, 
is a long process, the haying being often delayed by repeated 
rains. The hay, in general, on these accounts, seems to me much 
mferior to the hay with us; but I was surprised to find it so 
very much better, even after repeated Avettings and dryings, than 
I supposed it could possibly be. 

Hay, in England, is scarcely ever put in barns. It keeps well 
in stacks, made up as they are in the neatest manner, and care- 
fully thatched with straw. Nothing can be more beautiful and 
workmanlike than the manner in which these are made up ; and 
for hay, the long stacks are decidedly preferable to those of a 
round form, as it is cut down for use, in such case, to more ad- 
vantage. The formation of a stack, which is often done by 
women, is a work of much skill, which is the fruit only of prac- 
tice ; the thatching of a stack in the best manner requires both 
art and experience, and there are men who make it a profes- 
sion. When well executed, the hay remains for years imper- 
vious to wet. During the formation of the stack, — which, when 
intended to be large, must sometimes wait for several days the 
progress of the hay-making, — the most careful farmers have a 
large tarpaulin or canvass covering, to suspend upon poles over 
the stack, in order to protect it from rain. I refer to these minute 
circumstances, to illustrate the extreme carefulness with which 
many of the operations of husbandry are here conducted. When 
the hay is to be used, a whole stack is never removed to the 
stables at once, but it is carefully cut down as a loaf of bread 



280 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

miglit be cut, and always done up and bound in trusses, intended 
to be of fifty-six pounds each,* and in that way carried to be 
distributed to the animals. This requires some extra labor ; but 
the farmers find their account in it. How different this is from 
the careless and wasteful manner in which things are managed 
with us, where I have often seen horses and oxen standing knee 
deep in litter of the very best hay, which has fallen and been 
tossed out of the mangers ! The consequence of this extraordi- 
nary painstaking is, the most economical management of their 
products. The animals have a regular allowance, and are not at 
one time surfeited, and at another time starved ; and not a hand- 
ful of hay is wasted. I have never been quite able to understand 
the old proverb, that "a penny saved is twopence earned ; " but I 
quite understand the folly of wasting that which is the product 
of severe toil and expense, and the immorality of throwing away 
that which the bounty of Heaven bestows for the comfort and 
sustenance of man or beast. I once heard a minister say, in his 
sermon, that some persons were charitable in spots ; I think, in a 
similar sense, it may be said that some persons are economical in 
spots, and that many persons, who will chalTer and haggle half 
a day to save a sixpence in the price of an article, will often 
throw away shillings in their neglectful or wasteful use of it. 

The difficulties arising from the humidity of the climate, 
whicli the farmers in the north and on the western side of the 
island have to contend with in curing their hay, are such as to 
call forth all their energy, patience, and perseverance. I shall 
best illustrate this by giving an extract from a letter with which 
I [lave been favored by the Messrs. Drummond, of Stirling, 
Scotland, the enterprising foiniders of an Agricultural Museum, 
embracing specimens of soils, products, s^eds, implements, ma- 
chines, &:-c. &c., of an almost endless variety, and the inspection 
of which is full of instruction, and quite worth a journey of hun- 
dreds of miles. 

" Rye Gi'ass, or Timothy Hay. — For several seasons we have 
practised a very simple and satisfactory method, whicli enables 
us to make hay, not only while the sun shines, but while the 
rain falls, provided the 'weather be at all breezy. 

* Trusses of hay, in Smithfiold market, are expected to weigh sixty pounds in 
tlie early part of the season, and fifty-six pounds after Cliristmas. 



CHOPS. 281 

" The mowers are followed by women, who take the newly- 
cut swath up ill regular small sheaves or handmls, tying them 
near the top, which is done quickly by a few stalks of the grass. 
The handful is then held near the top, raised a few feet from 
the ground, and by giving it a quick motion downwards, the 
resistance of the air expands the bottom, so as to give it a firm 
position on the ground, thus.: ^^J^" It will be seen from the 
form that the rain, as it falls, "' fM~^ must run quickly off, 
while the inside is kept per- ftA fectly dry and airy. 

The process of hay-making /' \^v\ then suffers no inter- 
ruption, and on the outside .^ // iUyX only during theshowcrs. 

"These small sheaves are very soon, without further trouble, 
ready for being put together in small cocks, keeping all the root 
ends outwards, and placing one on tlie top to throw off the wet. 
In this way, the lower ends are dried, and the whole, without 
running the smallest risk of spoiling, is soon ready for stacking." 

The grass from which it is intended to save the seed, is al- 
ways done up in sheaves like grain, and remains in small stacks, 
or, as they are sometimes called, shocks, until it is ready to be 
threshed. 

19. Rye Grass. — The next grass most cultivated here is the 
rye grass. Of this there are two prominent kinds, the common, 
{loliiini perenne,) and the Italian, [lolium Italicum.) Of the 
former kind there are several varieties, distinguished mainly by 
the length of their endurance in the soil, some lasting only for a 
year, others three or four years, and some producing mucli more 
herbage than others. The common rye grass has, in my opin- 
ion, no advantage over our timothy or herds grass, either in its 
productiveness, or the quality of the hay. Of the Italian rye 
grass I have already spoken much at large. It is in high repute, 
and is invaluable for the alternate husbandry. '• Its limited 
duration, also," says Mr. Lawson, '' fits it well for sowing in 
mixture with the other sorts, intended for permanent pasture, as 
it dies out, and gives place to the weak and slow-maturing per- 
ennial sorts, which are destined ultimately to fill the groimd."* 

* "In respect to duration it may be termed a sub-perennial, beyond which title 
even die most permanent varieties of lolium perenne have no claim. In most 
cases, two seasons of Italian rye grass are all that can with certainty be depended 
24* 



282 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The experiments of Mr. Dickinson, already very fully detailed, 
would seem to show that he has fallen upon a most valuable va- 
riety ; and its superiority, to my mind, was decidedly indicated 
by a comparison of several specimens growing side by side with 
it in his grounds. The care with which he is saving the seed, 
and the great demand for it, promise an extended ditfusion. It 
is believed by many that the saving of seed from crops, the first 
year of their being sown, has induced the habit of an annual 
upon the plant; and there is reason to think that much has 
been, and more may still be, done for the improvement of this, 
as of other plants, by a careful selection of individual plants 
which indicate, either greater productiveness, or earlier maturity, 
or any other valuable property.* 

20. Orchard Grass, or Cocksfoot, [Dacttjlis Glomerata.) — 
The next grass much cultivated, and most esteemed, is the or- 
chard grass, or cocksfoot. This grass is well known in the 
United States, having, it is said, been- in the first place imported 
into England from the United States. It is a very quick grower, 
and makes most excellent feed and hay. The only objection to 
it is its disposition to grow in patches, which is, in a degree, pre- 
vented by its being frequently mown. A new kind of orchard 
grass has been introduced, which, for its size and prolificness, has 
been denominated the n;iant cocksfoot, and has been nuich com- 
mended ; but it has not fallen under my observation. 

21. Bokhara, or Tree Clover. — The Bokhara or tree 
clover, it may be expected that I should allude to, from the 
celebrity which was at one time given to it. I have seen it cul- 

on, and, in very wet, cold, spongy soils, it will often exhibit a thin stock the 
second season. Instances have occurred in which as many as five, or even six 
successive years' produce "have been reaped from the same field; but tliis has 
arisen more from the ground having been resown in the course of reaping the 
seed, than from the actual duration of the original plants; the sicds being re- 
mark:ibly-casily separated from the hay, even though not perfectly ripe, which 
will always render the harvesting of them an operation attended with considera- 
ble care and difficulty." — Laivson. 

* " Like all otlifr plants subjected to artificial culture," say the JNIessrs. Law- 
son, " tlie Italian rye grass is productive of numerous sub-varieties, as a proof of 
which, we received, in 1838, specimens of no less than fifty distinct spikes, col- 
lected in a field near North Berwick." 



CROPS. 283 

tivated in small patches, merely as an experiment ; but it seems 
to be too woody for feed. Indeed, a stalk of it was shown to me, 
with a silver head and ferule to it, which made quite a substan- 
tial cane, and might have been considered much rather as the 
'imb or sprout of a tree, than a stem of grass. 

There are many other varieties of grass, which are sown, in 
some cases, for the sake of the variety. Where land is to be laid 
down to permanent pasture, undoubtedly variety is to be recom- 
mended, as most conformable to the system of nature, — which on 
uncultivated and wild lands, as on the western prairies, for ex- 
ample, seems to multiply varieties almost without limit, — and 
likewise as adapted in their different natures to different soils and 
circumstances of climate and aspect. It can scarcely be expected 
that I should proceed further in the enumeration. The English 
are remarkably fond of a close turf, and the compactness of the 
turf in their lawns, and parks, and pleasnre grounds, resembling 
more than any thing else the close texture of velvet, or a Tur- 
key carpet, is always observed ; bnt in order to produce this, it 
requires that the ground should be filled with a great variety 
of seeds. 

22. Rib Grass, or Plantain. — I have observed, in many 
fields, the narrow-leaved plantain, or ribbed grass, cultivated for 
herbage. It produces its leaves early, and is relished by cattle, 
horses, and sheep ; but I confess I was not favorably impressed 
with it, as it spreads much upon the ground, and exclusively 
occupies a space which, with other plants, would certainly have 
produced a much larger amount of feed. The common parsley, 
likewise, is frequently sown with other grasses, at the rate of 
one pound of seed to an acre. It is eaten by cattle and sheep, 
and is supposed to be a remedy against the liver rot in sheep. 
Its habits are biennial, but it will in general perpetuate itself by 
its own seeds. 

23. Red Top, Herds-Grass. — That most valuable grass, 
among us known as the red top, {agrostis vulgaris,) the im- 
proved variety of which is the Rhode Island red top, I have not 
seen cultivated in England ; and timothy or herds grass (p/tleum 
pratense) is grown, within my observation, to a very small 

. extent. In my opinion, it would be extremely well adapted to 



284 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

many of their heavy soils, and be found a most profitable grass. 
I have known, repeatedly, an average yield of more than three 
tons of this grass to an acre, in well cured hay, in my own 
country ; and, in one case, more than twenty-nine tons, actually 
weighed, of well-cured hay. principally of herds grass, ob- 
tained from six statute acres of land. In Sinclair's scientific 
table* of the nutritive value of different grasses, he states that 
the greatest quantity of nutriment in Timothy is found when 
the plant is perfectly ripe ; but the cattle greatly prefer it, when 
it is cut and cured in the llower ; and I am inclined to pay some 
respect to the decision of judges who seem of right to claim to 
be competent. 

24. Millet. — T have not seen the millet grass {milliuin 
effus'um) cultivated in England, though .it might be, in my opin- 
ion, to the greatest advantage. I have obtained three tons to an 
acre, of as good and nutritious hay as can be grown, from this 
grass, sown in May. I presented some seed to the Royal Agri- 
cultural Society, but I have never yet learned its fate ; and my 
principal object, in referring to it is. that I may commend its 
cultivation. 

25. Sowing Grass Seed. — The clovers, are, of course, 
always sown in the spring, upon the grain. The other grasses 
are sown very frequently in the autumn, but more often, perhaps, 
in the spring, with a spring crop of oats or barley, the latter crop 
being generally preferred in the case, as tending to keep the land 
more open. 

The quantify of seed to be sown to an acre differs very much 
with different individuals. At Teddesley Park, Staffordshire, 
where one hundred acres are annually sown with Italian rye 
grass, three bushels per acre are sown with some clover. Where 
land is laid down to be kept in grass four or five years, the fol- 
lowing proportions of different grasses are prescribed : red 
clover, twelve pounds; trefoil, four pounds; white, six pounds: 
rib grass, or narrow-leaved plantain, two pounds ; and two pecks 
of perennial rye grass. I feel a good deal of diffidence in giving 
these quantities, as the practice of different farmers is so various. 



* Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis. 



CHOPS. 285 

Some recorameiid as much as twenty pounds of each of the red, 
white, and yellow clovers, with half that weight of rib grass, 
and three bushels of rye grass, per acre. This, of coarse, in- 
volves a large expense. 

One of the most eminent farmers in the kingdom, whose farm- 
ing seemed to me to combine, in as high a degree as I have any 
where seen, experience, intelligent observation, and practical 
skill, Mr. Stirling, of Glenbervie. Stirlingshire, gave me tlio sub- 
joined list and quantities, as his rule, where land was to be laid 
down to permanent pasture : nine pounds of fox-tail ; two and 
a half pounds of cock's- foot ; three and a half pounds of meadow 
fescue ; four and a half pounds of hard fescue ; four and a half 
pounds of Italian rye grass ; three pounds of red clover ; four 
pounds of yellow clover; four pounds of white clover; eight 
pounds of timothy; two pounds of rib grass; one pound of 
yarrow. He says that,' after repeated trials, he has found this 
mixture to answer better than any other. He sows red clover, 
and Italian rye grass, though shortlived grasses, for permanent 
pasture, because, he says, it is too expensive to seed the land, for 
the first year, with the perennial grasses, which sheep prefer, and 
because, in consequence, it carries more stock, and he has better 
pasture the following year. He is of opinion, that all grasses 
grow better when red clover is sown among them. The Italian 
rye grass gives the earliest bite, and helps to occupy the space, 
which would otherwise be filled with daisies and other weeds. 
He sows yellow clover, which is not, in general, a favorite grass, 
because, upon trial, when he sowed a field of grass, one half 
mixed with yellow clover and the other with white, the sheep 
preferred that which was sown with yellow. For neat cattle, 
he says, he should recommend the perennial rye grass, in ad- 
dition ; and he should, for milch cows, omit the yarrow, as, in 
excess, it imparts a disagreeable flavor to the butter. Mr. Stir- 
ling has made some valuable experiments in regard to the depth 
at which grass seeds should be sown, the results of which I had 
the pleasure to witness. The diflerence, in the same field, 
where the grass seeds were scarcely covered, and where they 
were harrowed in, was quite obvious, and decidedly against cov- 
ering them deeply. He says that '' a quarter of an inch is too 
deep for the poa nemoralis, (wood-meadow grass,) and tim- 
othy, as they grow more freely when scarcely covered." He 



286 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

adds that " grass seeds, in general, are most vigorous at three 
quarters of an inch deep, with the exception of cock's-foot, rib 
grass, and red clover." He would recommend, he says, to all 
who wish to avoid disappomtment, to prove all their grass, 
clover, and turnip seed, before using, by sowing a small weight 
in a pot, and placing it in a warm situation, and counting the 
plants which come up ; and they will find that a bushel of rye 
grass seed, weighing twenty-eight or thirty pounds, may be 
cheaper than one weighing eighteen or twenty pounds, though 
the price be considerably more. 

26. Hops, — The next great article of cultivation to which 1 
shall refer is that of hops. In 1804, the extent of ground de- 
voted to the cultivation of hops amounted to thirty-five thousand 
acres ; and it is at the present time supposed to have greatly 
increased. In the county of Kent, which is the part of England 
in which the hop is most extensively cultivated, — said, indeed, to 
embrace half the land in hops in the kingdom, — the number of 
acres exceeded Cwenty-two thousand. From the immense quan- 
tities of beer consumed in England, it is obvious that the de- 
mand for hops and barley must be very great. Hops are used in 
beer for two purposes ; — first, to correct the excessive sweetness of 
the malt, and to give it a pleasant flavor ; and second to preserve 
it sound. 

The hop cultivation is managed with great skill in Kent, and 
in parts of Surrey, where I have had the pleasure of seeing it in 
its perfection. One individual had one hundred and fifty acres 
in hops. The ground for hops should be a rich and mellow 
soil; and, in general, the farmers are of opinion, that, in order 
to produce the best quality of hops, the substratum of the soil 
should be calcareous. That the plant requires a deep culture is 
evident from the roots having been traced to a distance of twenty 
feet. The land requires to be trench-ploughed, or spaded to the 
depth of two spits. The former mode is the least expensive 
at first ; the latter mode will prove the most eligible in the end. 
The ground, indeed, should be subjected to the best garden cul- 
tivation. 

The hills are to be marked out in right lines, at a distance of 
six or eight feet apart. The spot which is to receive the plants 
should be rendered as mellow and rich as may be, by careful 



CROPS. 287 

iigging. Three a four plants may be placed in a hill. These 
may be procured from the clippings of the vines, in March ; or 
from what gardeners call layers ; or from seed. The latter mode 
is considered preferable. In hops, the male and female plant are 
distinct ; but many cultivators reject and extirpate the former as 
barren. It is necessary that they should grow together — that is, 
a due proportion of the male plants should be cultivated in order 
to give " that energy and vitality to the seed without which it 
would not produce its kind. This it is which gives weight to 
the hop, which gives the fine aromatic bitter to the production of 
the vine, and more fully to the seed; — the petal or leaf of the 
flower containing but little of the astringent quality of the hop. 
Cultivators of the hop are urged, therefore, to have many male 
plants on the ground, at least, one to fifty female plants, and 
' particularly to encourage them around their plantation, in the 
hedges, where no ground will be lost.' 

" The hop plants raised from seed surpass those which have 
been raised from cuttings, their luxuriant growth enabling them 
to withstand the effects of blight. They are found to have a 
seed at the bottom of every petal of the flower, of a most pun- 
gent aromatic flavor ; while those hops grown in the usual way, 
without the necessary quantity of male plants, have scarcely any 
seed, and they are mostly abortive. In fact, seed gives weight 
and flavor to the hop, and constitutes the vitality of the plant, 
or the condition or strength of the hop ; and where there is the 
most seed, there will be the most condition. We therefore say 
that the grand object in hop-growing should be to get as much 
seed as possible." * These are the important suggestions of an 
experienced and competent cultivator. 



* " The weight of hop leaves, without the seed, having been accuratf ly ascer- 
tained, those grown at Lewisham, being the fourth year from the sowing of the 
seed, and having a male plant close to them, weighed at the rate of thirty-six 
pounds per bushel ; and the same quantity (by old measure) from Shoreham, 
raised from cuttings, and grown near male plants, weighed at the rate of thirty- 
five pounds per bushel The hop leaves without seed, from a place at Oxford 
n'here tJie male plants are always eradicated, weighed at the rate of twenty-two 
pounds per bushel, when closely pressed." 

" Hop seeds being severally put into rainwater, most of those produced by 
plants raised from seeds, and grown near male plants, sank in the water; while 
most of those gi-oAvn in grounds that had not any male plant near them, and whic; 
nad been raised from cuttings, swam on its surface." — Golden Farmer. 



288 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The vines, or bines, grown from seed will be fit to be poled the 
third year ; those from cuttings or layers, the second year. The 
business of the first year is, to keep the ground as clean as pos- 
sible, and the plants well earthed up. Though they are not 
poled the first year, yet a stick is put into the ground, to which 
they are tied and trained. The hop is an enduring plant, and 
some fields in Kent have been in hops beyond the memory of 
persons now living ; but it is deemed best to renew them once in 
twelve or fifteen years. 

The hills require, every spring, to be opened and carefully 
trimmed — the last year's shoots to within an inch of the main 
stem, and the suckers close to it. In some cases, they are 
manured only once in two years. Farm-yard dung is an excel- 
lent manure for them ; and the clippings, or waste, of woollen 
mills, called shoddy^ are much valued and used; The land on 
the borders of the chalk formation is much preferred for the 
growth of hops. 

There are several different kinds grown, and distinguished, m 
different places, by different names. These are the grape, the 
lohite bines, and the golden, vulgarly called the goldings. 
The white bines are most esteemed in Farnham, Surrey, and 
there are no hops in the market, which bring a better price than 
the Farnham. 

The poles used for the hops are of chestnut, ash, or larch, and 
are cultivated in plantations, oftentimes, by the hop-growers 
themselves ; and these plantations admit of being cut once in ten 
years. Beech, birch, and elder, are quite inferior, though some- 
times used. The poles arc from twelve to sixteen feet ; but it is 
said to be an error to have them too long, as the bine becomes 
feeble by too much extenditig itself With a view to avoid the 
effects of violent winds, the plantation is sometimes hoodwinked 
by a row of trees upon the side most exposed ; and to give more 
firmness, one cultivator has taken pains to have the poles strength- 
ened by an iron wire extending from one to another on the top. 
The experiment was considered of doubtful advantage.* 

* " Improvements in Hop-poling. — Mr. Knowles's plantation (Kent) consists of 
about forty-two acres, lying on a very beautiful slope of the Ragstonc Hil!,-', having- 
a warm aspect and an excellent soil, which, however, evidently owes mu'-ii of its 
productiveness to liberal dressing and spirited cultivatior.. Mr. Knowlcs digs his 
land twice — once early in the winter, and again at the isua. period in the spring 



CROPS. 



289 



The plantations, when it can be safely done, are cultivated 
by a horse hoe, or plough, and every effort is made to keep the 
plantation free from weeds. The plant is subject to blight, and 
destruction from aphides, and a good crop is judged to be ob- 
tained scarcely oftener than one year in live. An acre contains 
about one thousand hills, and the yield may be put down at from 
five hundred to one thousand pounds per acre. In a series of 
ten years, from 1835 to 1844, the return of one plantation, as 
given in Mr. Backland's valuable Report on the Agriculture of 
Kent, is as subjoined : — 





Cwt. 


qr. 


lbs. 






Cict. 


qr. 


lbs. 


1835, . 


. . 11 


1 


23 per 


acre. 


1840, . 


.. 


2 


15 per acre 


1836, . 


.. 8 





18 " 


u 


1841,. 


.. 9 


3 


IS " '^ 


1837, . 


.. 7 


1 


16 •' 


u 


1842, . 


. 10 





19 " " 


1838, . 


. . 11 


2 


23 « 


u 


1843, . 


. 10 


3 


00 " '■ 


1839, . 


. . 15 


1 


6 " 


li 


1844, . 


. 3 





9 " " 



The price of hops fluctuates between very wide ranges. The 
expense of cultivation in Surrey was stated to me, exclusive of 

nidgets or harrows all tlirough the summer, and generally farms upon four good 
maxims, which perhaps may be more easily remembered by the reader, if thrown 
into a distich. 

' Cut early, pick late, 
Well mend, and cultivate.' 

This new plan of poling was exhibited in about seven acres of splendid goldings. 
at the back of Mr. Knowles's residence. The weather sides of this piece had 
been poled four hills deep, with handsome, straight, twenty-one feet, large poles, 
in rows. These were lashed to similar poles placed horizontally across tliem, 
about eiglit feet high, from end to end of the hills ; and the rows of hills were 
similarly bound to each other by poles placed from the outside rows to the inside 
ones. By this means a phalanx of poles offers a sufficient resistance to the wind 
to shelter the Avhole ground. Mr. Knowles was led to devise this plan as a 
means of shelter. In one year, he calculates that he lost a bag an acre of his 
goldings, from the effects of the wind — a loss amounting to about one hundred 
and forty pounds. This arrangement iias been found a complete protcctioii. 
Another result has been obtained from it, which was scarcely anticipated, viz.. 
a very great improvement in tlie quantity of Iiops grown on the outside poles. In 
many cases, tliese poles are covered with from tliirteen feet to fourteen feet of 
hops from the top, besides the cross poles being clustered most lieavily, tlius 
clearly showing tlio great advantage of keeping the plants and poles firmly fixed, 
instead of allowing them to swing about. The increased expense of poling a 
ground throughout, in tliis way, is estimated at about tliirty shilhngs per acre, 
besides an extra man required in [)ulling. The saving in windy seasons would, 
doubtless, be very considerable." — Maidslone Gazette. 
VOL. II. 25 



290 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

rent, at thirty pounds, or one hundred and fifty dollars, per acre ; 
but by many it is estimated much higher. Twenty pounds, or 
one hundred dollars, are sometimes paid as rent, per acre, for hop 
land. In spite of all these uncertainties, — perhaps the more on 
account of them, — men full of adventure plunge with eagerness 
into the cultivation ; and the betting upon the amount of excise 
duty paid to the government — which, of course, is the index of 
the amount of product — is prevalent throughout the hop district, 
from the largest grower to even the lowest picker and packer. 

It is desirable that only the same kind of hops should be 
planted in a field, so that the ripening may be uniform. It is 
important that the hops should be of a bright golden color, and 
full of aroma, or what is here called lupidin, which gives its 
value to the hop. The bines, at the season of harvest, are cut 
about three feet from the ground, — lower than that is injurious to 
the plant, from excessive bleeding ; — and the poles are then lifted 
from the ground, and laid upon frames, when the picking begins. 
This, in favorable weather, is a merry season ; and pickers come 
from distant places, men, women, and children, (many of them 
of the gypsy race,) encamping in the neighborhood under their 
rude tents, constructed of hop poles covered with a coarse blan- 
ket, with loose straw for their beds ; and others, men, women, 
and children, are glad to find a lodging in some outhouse or shed, 
like pigs in a sty, with little regard to the decencies of life. In 
general, they provide for themselves ; though the owner is careful 
to have a good supply of bread and potatoes, as they may be 
required. 

The hops are picked in large baskets, which are gauged by 
marks ; and an accountant is always in the field, to oversee the 
picking. They are sorted as they are gathered, the discolored 
and inferior being put by themselves. The price for picking 
varies from two pence to three and a half pence per bushel, or 
from four to seven cents. From five to seven bushels is con- 
sidered a fair day's work, though I saw one woman, who had, in 
one day, picked eighteen bushels. Whole families, especially 
mothers and children, capable of doing any thing, are in requisi- 
tion ; and the babies are laid upon the ground, to take their first 
lessons in hop-picking, as they may be able to receive them. 

Tiie hops, being picked, are at once conveyed to the kilns, or, 
as they are called, oasts, to be dried without delay. A night's 



CROPS. 291 

delay would be extremely injurious. The most approved kilns 
are now made of brick, of a conical or sugar-loaf form ; " that 
is, a circular kiln of brick-work, from fifteen to eighteen feet , 
diameter, with rafters, twenty-four to twenty-seven feet long, 
leaving a round opening in the apex of the roof, surmounted by 
a movable cowl, (or swinging ventilator,) the object of Avhich is 
to allow the vapor of the drying hops freely to escape. The 
drying-floor should be at least ten or twelve feet from the fires ; 
it is usually made of stout lathes of fir, about two inches apart, 
covered with a horse-hair cloth, upon which the hops are evenly 
spread. The improved modern practice consists in having one 
or more large openings or fires to one kiln, and to admit 
plenty of cool air from without, the draught being regulated by 
means of flues and sliding doors. The fuel used in drying hops 
is, in all cases, charcoal or coke, with some anthracite." * They 
are laid upon the kiln from six inches to a foot thick, and are 
about twelve hours in being dried. 

A large amount of sulphur is now used in drying hops, and is 
deemed most important to their color. Great prejudices existed 
at first against its use, but it is not now objected to by the 
brewers. The hops remain a few days, after being taken from 
the kiln, in the storehouses, before being packed. The packing 
has been repeatedly attempted by machinery, but none found 
equal to the human machine. A bag, therefore, is suspended 
through the floor of the room, in which the hops are deposited, 
by a hoop, which forms a temporary rim to it ; two large hand- 
fuls are tied up in the corners of the bottom of the bag, to render 
the handling of the bag more convenient ; and the packer then 
gets into the bag, and draws the hops, — which are shoved towards 
him, on the floor, by a child, — with his arms, into the bag, and 
treads them with his feet as closely as possible. This is most 
severe and awkward labor, and he receives from 9 d. to 1 s. 
per cwt. for packing. Every part of the body, arms, and legs, 
is brought into violent motion, and the eff'ort resembles what one 
would conceive it might be with a man trying to shake off" his 
skin. A. bag or pocket contains about 21 cwt. They have 
established markets for hops on fixed days, where buyers and 
sellers attend, and the sample bags are exhibited. The great 

* Buckland's Report of Kent. 



292 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

complaint made of the American hops, in the English market, — 
where they are considered greatly igferior to those grown among 
« themselves, — is, that they are not well cured, nor assorted. 
The profits of the cultivation of hops are sometimes very large. 
A friend told me that he had known one hundred pounds, as 
profit, realized from a single acre. But such is a very rare 
example. Many good fortunes have been made in the business, 
but very severe losses have been sustained ; and the great un- 
certainties of the result are sufficient to deter any, but the 
most bold and enterprising. 



CVII.— FLAX. 

1. General Views. — The cultivation of flax has prevailed 
to a very limited degree in England ; I saw nothing of it in 
Scotland ; but in Ireland it is pursued to a considerable 
extent, and yearly with increasing success. Two or three 
things have served, heretofore, to hinder its cultivation. The 
first has been the opinion, that it is a very scourging or exhaust- 
ing crop, and the second, the difficulties of curing it, and the 
inferior quality of the article, when produced. The want of a 
market, likewise, for the produce, operated against its cultivation. 
Out of the cultivation has arisen the market ; and the product 
and the demand appear to be going on with an equal step. 

With respect to the exhaustion of the soil, if reliance is to be 
placed upon chemical analysis, then the fibre of the plant, the 
flax properly so speaking, is wholly derived from the atmosphere. 
This is the result come to by the eminent Dr. Kane, professor 
of chemistry, in Dublin, upon a chemical analysis of the flax 
plant ; and therefore, if the other portions of the plant are, in 
any form, returned to the soil, there will be no impoverishment, 
and flax may be as often cultivated upon the same soil as any 
other crop. How far this question may be considered as settled 
by such an examination, I shall leave others to determine ; but ex- 
perience proves that, where the land is properly managed, flax may, 
with success, be much oftener repeated on the same land, than 
it was formerly supposed advisable to do it. In what form these 



FLAX. 293 

portions of the flax-plant are to be made available as manure, 1 
shall presently show.* 

The cultivation of flax is very much on the increase in Ire- 
land. In 1841, the amount of crop, as ascertained, was twenty- 
five thousand tons ; in 1843, it exceeded thirty-six thousand 
tons ; and while the quantity produced is constantly on the in- 
crease, the quality of the article is decidedly, and very greatly, 
improved. The flax grown in Belgium, from its fineness and 
color, has been deemed much superior to any other. Much of 
the flax now grown in Ireland, of which I saw samples at their 
great cattle show, is probably surpassed by none. This im- 
provement has been effected, undoubtedly, in a considerable 
degree, by the establishment of a society for the improvement of 
the growth of flax in Ireland, composed of some of the first 
men in Ireland, in point of .intelligence, rank, wealth, and public 
spirit, who have obtained and circulated the fullest information 
in respect to the growth of flax, and the proper management of 
the crop ; who have offered liberal premiums for the best sam- 
ples which should be produced, and for improved machines for 
dressing and cleaning the crop ; and who hav^e especially im- 
ported several skilful flax-growers and managers from Belgium, 
in order to give direct and practical instructions to the Irish cul- 
tivators, as to the most improved modes of growing, cleaning, 
and dressing the crop, prevalent in their country. No method for 
the advancement of these objects could be more judicious. 

Having seen many of the plantations of flax in Ireland, and 
believing that the crop may be of great value in the United States, 
in connection with the proper application of the seed, I shall 
give, in as condensed a form as I am able, the information which 
I have received respecting it. I am quite aware how greatly the 

* " This fibre, which constitutes the entire money vahie of the flax crop, is 
produced during the life of the plant, by the elements of the atmosphere ; and the 
materials taken from the manure and the soil are, in reality, employed by tlie 
plant m organizing substances which do not make any return to the farmer, but 
which are, on the contrary, under certain circumstances, considered to be posi- 
tively a disadvantage. It is, therefore, of importance, that it should be under- 
stood that, by a proper system, the growth of flax and similar fibre crops should 
be destitute of all exhausting influence ; that the materials drawn from the soil 
by such a crop should be found in the waste products of its manufacture, and 
should be available by being returned to the soil, to restore it to its original con- 
dition of fertility." — Professor Kane. 
25* 



294 EUROPEAN AGKICULTURE. 

extended growth and cheapness of cotton has superseded the use 
of hnen ; but when the vastly-superior comfort of linen, especially 
in hot weather, is considered, its greater durability and strength, 
so requisite for many purposes, its important uses as twine and 
thread, and its indispensable use in those very delicate fabrics for 
which increasing wealth and luxury are constantly making new 
demands, we may expect that the cultivation of it in the United 
States will be much extended. 

2. Soil, anb Preparation of the Soil. — The best soil for 
the cultivation of flax is stated to be a deep, rich loam, with a 
strong subsoil ; and the land should be thoroughly drained, and 
so laid as not to retain water upon the surface. Wetness of the 
soil, or standing water upon it, is most fatal to the flax crop. 
A calcareous soil is never to be chosen for flax, lime being un- 
friendly to the plant. The best crop to which flax can succeed 
is a grain crop, such as wheat or oats. It should not be manured 
the same year in which it is sown, but the manure should have 
been applied with a previous crop. It is desirable that the land 
should be deeply ploughed, or subsoiled, as the roots of flax 
penetrate to a considerable depth, and above all, that it should be 
thoroughly cleansed from weeds. Fall ploughing is recom- 
mended, and two ploughings in the spring, that the land may b|e 
brought into a fine tilth. The land should be well harrowed 
and rolled ; then harrowed with a light or seed-harrow, the seed 
sown, and again harrowed so as to give it a very light covering, 
as, if buried deep, the seed will perish ; and then again rolled, if 
the ground is light, but not on heavy land, that the ground may 
be left smooth and consolidated. The rolling after sowing, 
however, is much condemned by some successful and experienced 
flax-growers. 

3. Seed and Sowing. — The seed should be plump, shining, 
and heavy, and should be, as far as possible, cleaned from the 
seeds of all weeds. Two and a half bushels of seed are recom- 
mended to a statute acre. I may remark in passing, that the use 
of American seed is much discouraged in Ireland, and farmers 
are strongly cautioned against sowing it, as producing a coarse, 
branchy kind of flax, and of very inferior quality. This fact may 
prove of great importance to the farmers of the United States. 



FLAX. 295 

The best flax-seed for sowing is reputed to come from Riga, 
though Dutch seed is much approved. Thick sowing is strongly- 
urged, as it is desirable to have the flax shoot up in a straight 
stem, with as little branching as may be, for the finer the stem 
the finer the flax or fibre. Less seed is produced in this way, 
but the flax itself is more valuable. The eminent manufac- 
turers, the Messrs. Marshall & Co., of Leeds, give it as their 
opinion, " that the cultivation of the flax for the fibre is of far 
more importance than for the seed; and that by sowing seed 
suitable to produce fine flax, and sowing it thick, (say three to 
three and a half bushels, per acre.) the farmer, though he sacri- 
fices something in the value of the seed produced, will get a 
more remunerating crop from his land than he now obtains." 
This is a manufacturer's view of the question ; when the value 
of the seed for feeding animals is considered, and the contribu- 
tion which, in this way, it yields to the enriching of the land, 
the farmer may come to a somewhat diff'erent conclusion. 

The sowing of clover or grass seed is strongly objected to, as 
injuring the root ends of the flax. It is desirable to sow as early 
as convenient, as the earliest sown proves, always, the best crop. 
It is understood that flax should never follow turnips, or any of 
the turnip tribe ; and it may occur in a rotation twice in ten 
years, or once in seven or eight years. 

4. Weeding. — If the land has been thoroughly cleaned 
before sowing, the weeds will give little trouble ; but the crop 
will require weeding ; and in order to do this, great care must 
be taken not to twist or bruise the plant, and to weed facing the 
wind, so that it may assist the plant to recover its upright posi- 
tion. Much injury may be done to the plant by carelessness in 
weeding, which is performed usually by women and children, 
creeping upon all fours, and so bearing more lightly upon the 
plant than if they stood upon their feet. 

5. Pulling. — It is important to determine the best time for 
pulling the flax. The fibre is of a better quality, if pulled be- 
fore the seed is quite ripe. If pulled too soon, there is much 
waste in preparing it ; if pulled too late, the fibre becomes 
coarse. '' The best time for pulling is when the seeds are be- 
ginning to change from a green to a pale brown color, and the 



296 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Stalk to become yellow, for about two thirds of its height from 
the ground." An eminent cultivator gives this advice, in re- 
gard to determining the ripeness of flax : " Try the flax every 
day, when approaching ripeness, by cutting the ripest capsule, 
on an average stock, across, (horizontally;) and when the seeds 
have changed from the white milky substance, which they first 
show to a greenish color, pretty firm, then is the time to pull. 
The old prejudice in favor of much ripening is most injurious, 
even as regards quantity ; and the usual test of the stalk strip- 
ping at the root, and turning yellow, should not be depended 
on." The prevalent practice is, almost universally, to overripen 
the crop. 

If the ground has been properly prepared, by draining and 
levelling, the crop may be expected to be of equal length ; but 
where this is not the case, then the puller should be directed to 
seize the longest stems in his hand, and, having pulled them, lay 
them by themselves, and next pull the shorter stems, keeping 
each handful separate, as it is of great importance to keep the 
flax of equal length. It is urged, as very essential, to keep the 
flax even, like a brush, at the root-ends ; and in none of the after 
processes should the short and the long be intermixed. 

6. Rippling. — The rippling of flax is a process by which 
the seed bolls are separated from the stalk. This is done by 
drawing them through an iron comb, which is formed with iron 
teeth fastened into a board or bench. The seed bolls are some- 
times dried in kilns; but by this process they are very apt to be 
injured, and their valuable properties reduced. They should, 
therefore, be dried in the sun, and the seed threshed out. The 
light seed, and the bolls or chaff", are to be used as feed for stock, 
for which purpose they are eminently nutritious. 

7. Steeping. — The rippling or combing off the seed being per- 
formed, the next step is that of steeping the flax. This is to be 
conveyed, then, as soon as may be, to a pond of water, quite free 
from all impurities, and especially from all mineral mixtures, 
which are always pernicious to the plant. If the water is spring 
water, it is advised to let the pond be filled some days before the 
steeping, that it may have the advantage of the sun upon it. 
The flax is then to be laid in the pond, two or more layers in 



FLAX. 297 

thickness, and covered closely with sods, that it may be kept 
down under the water, away from the air and light, yet without 
sinking to the bottom. In Belgium, crates are used, in which 
the flax is packed away, in bundles of about twelve pounds' 
weight each, and these are sunk, and kept down by weights, in 
the water, with stones underneath, to prevent their resting upon 
the bottom. It is not objected that a stream of water should 
pass over the pond ; but this, though sometimes recommended, is 
incompatible with saving the liquor of the steep for manure, for 
which purpose, as I have seen, it is eminently valuable. 

From eight to twelve days is considered a sufficient length of 
time for the steeping of the plant ; though one Irish cultivator 
states, that where, by accident, some of his flax was left in the 
water for eighteen days, it was much superior to that which re- 
mained only thirteen days. The test given to determine its 
fitness to be taken out of the water is as follows : " Try some 
stalks of average thickness, by breaking the woody part, in two 
places, about six inches apart, at the middle of the stalk ; catch 
the broken bit of wood ; and if it will pull freely out downwards 
for that length, without breaking or tearing the fibre, and with 
none of the fibre adhering to it, it is ready to be taken out. 
Make this trial over, six hours after fermentation subsides ; 
for sometimes the change is rapid." The flax is then to be 
removed from the pool with great care ; and after being set up on 
end, to drain, for a few hours, by placing the bundles close to 
each other, it is then to be spread out upon a grass field, not 
upon the field on which it grew, to complete the process. Short 
pasture ground is best for this purpose ; and it must be spread 
thinly, so that one stalk may not overlay another, and as evenly 
as can be done. It is to be turned two or three times, while on 
the ground, that it may not acquire diflerent shades of color by 
the action of the sun. 

When the wood breaks easily, and separates from the fibre, it 
is then ready to be taken up. This may be determined by the 
hand, or by trying some in a machine. It is important, in taking 
up, to keep the ends even. It is to be tied up in small bundles, 
and put away in small stacks, loosely built up, or under cover in 
a barn or shed, ready for being broken and scutched. Some per- 
sons attempt to dry their flax by fire ; but such a method is 



298 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

strongly condemned, as the flax is always injured, its oily por- 
tions being dried out by fire. 

S. The CouRTKAY Method. — On the Continent, at Courtray, 
from which some of the best flax is obtained, they practise a 
method of curing their flax which has been adopted in Ireland, 
with much success, but which involves more trouble than the 
usual process. "As soon as pulled, the flax is stocked, without 
binding it. The handfuls are set up resting against each other, 
the root ends spread out, and the tops joining like the letter A, 
forming stooks about eight feet long, ivith a short strap keeping 
the ends firm. In this way it will resist wind and rain well, and 
dry fast. In eight or ten days, it may be bound up in small 
bundles, carried to the ripple, and steeped j or it may be 
stacked in the field or put into a barn, the seed to be taken off" at 
leisure, in the winter, and the flax steeped in the ensuing spring." 
This leaves the farmer an opportunity of choosing the most 
leisure and convenient season for attending to his flax product. 
It is understood that flax improves in the stack for two or three 
years ; but the danger of the flax suflering from being put away, 
in a stack, green, is to be considered ; and the rippling and 
steeping it immediately after being pulled may prove a consider- 
able saving of labor over that of stacking it at first. 

9. Breaking AND Scutching. — Machines have been invented, 
in Ireland, for breaking and scutching, or hatchelling, or s^cin- 
gling, as it is called in the United States, the flax crop. The 
break seems fitted to do its work well. It is composed of tiiree 
cylindrical rollers, grooved like the nuts of a cider-mill, and re- 
volving against each other. The scutching machine has several 
arms made to perform about a hundred and eighty revolutions in 
a minute ; but the objection to it is, that it drives the wood or 
hull into the flax, and does not leave it in that clean and even 
state which is produced by the hand. There can be little doubt 
that experience and ingenuity will improve these, or invent 
other machines, which may prove more suitable to the object. 
It certainly would not be diflicult to make an improvement upon 
the method of breaking flax practised in Ireland before the im- 
proved machines came to be invented, when it was the custom 



FLAX. 299 

to break it with ,a cart-wheel upon the road, and when they had 
no wheel, " the cultivator would accost a gentleman, passing in 
a gig, with a ' Please yer honor, will ye gie uz a rowl ? ' " 

10. Uses of the Seed. — I have already suggested the con- 
clusion to which many intelligent farmers have arrived, that flax 
is not a particularly exhausting crop, when the refuse of the crop 
is returned to the soil, and the seed applied to the feeding of ani- 
vials. I saw very remarkable effects produced in a field of oats, 
where the water in which the flax had been steeped was applied 
as a manure. In my opinion, no manure could have been more 
eflicacious ; and so it has proved wherever it has been tried. But 
yet greater benefits are calculated upon, to be derived from the 
seed when used as feed for fattening stock, and in their manure, 
for enriching the land. One of the most successful farmers I 
have met with on this side of the water, and one whose premises, 
in every department, exhibited the strongest proofs of industry, 
skill, and intelligence, — and who, more than all this, has risen 
from the humble position of a tenant farmer, with very small 
means, to that of an independent landholder, and has brought up 
a large family, and planted three sons, as tenant farmers, around 
him, with ample capital to manage their farms, — attributed much 
of his successful husbandry to a very liberal supply of linseed 
oil cake to his fatting cattle and sheep. His farm consisted of 
two hundred and fifty acres, and he annually expended two hun- 
dred and twenty-five pounds, or more than one thousand one 
hundred dollars, for oil cake. This enabled him to turn off" his 
stock in good condition ; this gave him ample means of enriching 
his land ; and this laid the foundation of some of the best crops 
grown in the country. The opinion of an experimenter so ob- 
serving and successful must have great weight in the case. 
Many farmers consume fifty and one hundred tons per year, and 
some, within my knowledge, to the amount of two hundred tons 
per year. But if the linseed oil cake is valuable, still more val- 
uable is the seed itself, from which the cake is formed, before 
the oil is expressed. The seed is not a new article to be used in 
the feeding of stock, and its great efficacy in fattening both 
cattle and sheep, and in increasing the secretions of milk, when 
given to cows, I have myself repeatedly experienced. 



300 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

11. Mr. Warne's Method. — It is not best, however, to use it 
in a crude state, but either to reduce it to a rich jelly or mu- 
cilage by boiling, or, after having done so, by the addition of 
meal, to form it into a rich paste, of which cattle soon become 
very fond. Mr. John Warne, of Trimmingham, in Norfolk county, 
whom I have the pleasure of knowing, a highly intelligent and 
enterprising farmer, has greatly interested himself to induce the 
farmers of England to cultivate flax largely, not for the fibre 
only, but for the seed, as feed for cattle, and in this way to 
obtain the most effectual means of enriching their land, and 
thus save at home some portion of those immense sums 
which are now expended upon the importation of manures from 
abroad. 

Having had repeated communications with Mr. Warne. I shall 
give some account of the management which he pursues in the 
use of seed for fattening. He has sheds for his stock, which he 
divides into separate compartments, or stalls, or, as he calls them, 
boxes. Each box is designed to contain one fatting animal. It 
is intended to be about nine feet square, and the earth is dug out 
so as to form a depth of about two feet from the surface, walled 
in with brick, and the bottom made tight. The animal to be 
fatted is placed in this box, and copiously littered with straw, of 
which an ample supply is furnished daily, that he may have a 
dry bed to lie down upon, and that as much of the manure as 
possible may be absorbed by the straw. The animal is not 
taken out of the box during the process of being fattened ; and, 
besides such long feed as may be given, he is supplied with this 
linseed paste, made after the recipe subjoined. 

" Compound for Sheep. — Lot a quantity of linseed be reduced to a fine meal, 
and barley be passed through a crushing machine, with smooth cylinders. 
Put a hundred and sixty-eight pounds of water into an iron cauldron ; as soon as 
it boils, not before, stir in twenty-one pounds of linseed meal ; continue to stir it 
for about five minutes ; then let sLxty-thrce pounds of the crushed barley be 
sprinkled upon the boiling mucilage, and rapidly stirred in. After the whole has 
been carefully incorporated, the fire may be suffered to go out. The mass will 
continue to simmer until the barley has absorbed the mucilage ; and the com- 
pound, when cold, may be given to the sheep." 

" For bullocks, the same process is to be observed ; but the barley, in this case, 
must be ground into fine meal, and the quantity of water somewhat reduced. In 
this case, the fire must be extinguished, for the reason, that flattened barley re- 
quires heat to carry on absorption, while meal is sufficiently cooked by immersion. 



FLAX. 301 

It may be asked, Why should not the compound for sheep be equally adapted to 
bullocks ? I answer," (he adds,) " that sheep are close, ruminating animals, and 
pass nothing undigested, while with bullocks, it is far otherwise. On the com- 
pound being removed into tubs, it must be excluded from the air, to prevent its 
becoming rancid." 

I have given the directions nearly in Mr. Warne's own words : 
but I see no reason why the barley may not, in both cases, be 
at once reduced to meal, or why the linseed and the grain 
(whether barley, rye, or maize) may not, in proper proportions, 
be at first ground together, in which case they are likely to be 
most intimately incorporated ; and the experienced manager will 
himself soon be able to determine, from his own observation, the 
quantity of water the meal will take up, and form a suitable and 
nutritious compound, without difficulty. The points important 
seem to me to be, that both seed and grain should be ground, 
and both sufficiently cooked. Mr. Warne adds, in another place, 
" A bullock may be allowed, in general, to eat as much cake in 
a day as he pleases ; but a nice regard must always be had to 
the quantity of linseed placed before him, and especially to the 
oil. Neither oil nor linseed should be used in a crude state, but 
formed into mucilage, by being boiled in water. The seed must 
first be redticed to fine meal; one pound and a half of which, 
stirred into twelve pounds of water, while it is boiling, with four 
pounds and a half of barley, beans, or pea meal, and given to a 
bullock of between forty and fifty stone, (fourteen pounds,) every 
day, will, in addition to Swedish turnips, be quite snflicient, or, 
perhaps, rather more than he would be inclined to eat. This 
small quantity of linseed will act well on the stomach ; and the 
bullocks will thrive, and fatten, in a degree that can scarcely be 
credited, except by the person who tries the experiment. The 
quantity of seed may be increased, after the animal has been accus- 
tomed to it for some time, but, I believe, to no great extent." * 

I place the fullest confidence in these statements of Mr. Warne. 
From my own experience and observation, I am convinced that no 
more nutritious or fattening food can be given to animals, (swine 
excepted, as it gives an unpleasant taste to the pork,) than 
cooked linseed or flaxseed jelly, in certain proportions; and it 
may be mixed with cut hay, or with variotis other articles of 
food, with equal success. 

* Warne on the Flax Crop, and Use of the Seed, p. 120. 
VOL. II. 26 



302 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



One great object in Mr. Warne's arrangements is to secure a 
good supply of manure. The manure is not removed until the 
fatting of the animal is completed ; and then, if sufficient litter 
has been supplied, it is obvious that the manure, being protected 
from the sun and rain, and all its liquid portions being retained 
and absorbed in the straw, must be of the richest quality. Its 
very superior efficacy cannot be doubted. 

I ought not to quit this subject without reverting to some 
statements respecting the effect of flaxseed, or rather the refuse, 
or waste, of flax, upon cows in milk. A respectable Irish farm- 
er testifies that, from one field of ten acres, he had one hundred 
and eight3'--five bushels of bows for feeding, that is, seed in the 
capsules, and other refuse from the flax. After feeding a cow, 
which gave only three quarts of milk, a short time, upon this 
refuse, she soon increased her milk to nine quarts per day. 
Another farmer testifies to a similar fact, where a cow, which only 
gave two quarts, was improved so as to give nine ; and, upon dis- 
continuing this food, she went back to four quarts. These in- 
stances, being well authenticated, seem entitled to consideration. 

Many farmers in the United States will, I think, deem this sub- 
ject worthy their consideration. The cultivation of flax has 
been very little extended, and within my experience has, pro- 
portionately with the population, been lessened. The foot spin- 
ning-wheel of the industrious operative, formerly so pleasing 
an ornament at the cottage door, is now to be found only among 
the useless lumber of the garret. That, in the present daily in- 
creasing triumphs of machinery, hand-spinning, or house-weaving, 
should ever come back, it would be quite idle to expect. Habits 
and practices much less useful, and much less desirable, may take 
their place ; but I should certainly be glad to see an increased 
use of linen fabrics, on the ground both of comfort and durability. 

12. Average Produce, and Uses of the Produce. — The 
average yield of a well-cultivated crop of flax ranges between 
five hundred and six hundred pounds ; and the quantity of seed 
to an acre may be about fifteen bushels. The chaff and light 
seed are saved by some, and when cooked are deemed valuable 
food for stock. 

In the reports of the Irish Society for the Growth of Flax in 
Ireland, a statement is given of the application of the produce 



LIVE STOCK. 303 

of three acres of flax, the purposes for which it is used, the pro- 
cesses through which it passes, and the amount of useful and 
profitable labor which it puts in motion, which I think cannot fail 
to interest my readers. 

" Produce of three Acres of Flax. — 100 stones, at 15 s., == £75, 
each stone calculated to produce 5^ lbs. of dressed flax, — in all 
550 lbs., — spun to 30 hanks to the lb. will produce 16,500 
hanks. About 158 females will be employed twelve months in 
spinning, at the rate of two hanks per week, (sixteen working 
days;) wages for spinning each hank, about 1 s. 8 d. or nearly 
7 d. per diem for each spinner. This quantity of yarn would, 
make 210 webs of cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, each web con- 
taining five dozen. About 18 weavers would, be twelve months 
weaving this quantity, allowing each man a month for each web 
(17^ weavers exactly ;) wages per web, £2, or from 9 s. 6 d. to 
10 s. a man, per week. About 40 females would be employed, 
twelve months in needlework, (hemstitch or veining;) each 
could do one handkerchief on each working day ; wages, 8 s. per 
dozen, or 8d. per day. The goods, when finished, would be 
worth £2 10 s. per dozen, 

" 158 spinners, 12 months, or 52 weeks, at about 

3s. 4d. per week, £1,369 6 8 

18 weavers, 12 months, 210 webs, at £2 

per web, 420 

40 needlewomen, 52 weeks, 1,050 dozen hand- 
kerchiefs, at 8 s. per dozen, 420 

216 persons employed. Cost of labor, . . £2,209 6 8 

Cost of flax, ... 75 
Profit, .... . 340 13 4 
Value of 1,050 dozen handkerchiefs, at £2 10 s. 

per dozen, £2,625 



CVIII. — LIVE STOCK. 

I come now to speak of one of the most important topics con- 
nected with British agricultural improvement — the live stock 
of the country. Among the conflicting opinions and estimates 



304 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

which prevail, both in this country and the United States, in 
respect to different breeds, my judgment may be viewed with 
jealousy and suspicion, and I may have to encounter fierce preju- 
dices, on the part of breeders and speculators. My opinion will 
be given without any pecuniary bias whatever ; and I beg my 
friends will, in any event, regard it as that of an humble indi- 
vidual, making no pretensions to infallibility of judgment, and 
anxious only to give the result of his various inquiries and ob- 
servations, in as impartial and simple a form as possible. 

Two things impress strongly the mind of an observing trav- 
eller, in this matter; — the first, the variety of distinct breeds 
which present themselves ; and second, the perfection to which 
individuals, and large numbers of each of these breeds, are car- 
ried. Different localities in the kingdom have their favorite breeds, 
are tenacious of their peculiar merits, and are sure to prefer them 
above all others ; and, at the same time, the pains and expense, 
which are bestowed upon their improvement, have been rewarded 
by many examples, in most of the breeds, of what may be called 
the perfection of form, and the highest degree of fatness — a 
degree of fatness transcending the most stimulated appetites of 
epicurism, and verging, in some cases, almost to disgust. 

The science, or, perhaps, it may be called the art of breeding, 
has been greatly studied. But notwithstanding the success 
which has attended it, especially with some men, yet, as in respect 
to most recondite subjects in nature to which the human mind 
has applied itself, there remains a great deal to be understood 
and explained ; and we, as yet, have only passed the first steps 
on the threshold. The evidence of this is found in the fact, 
that the great question of the propriety of breeding in and in, 
or of propagating within certain lines of affinity, is still a mooted 
question. High authorities are quoted on both sides. Indeed, it 
must be obvious, that unless v/e suppose several distinct individ- 
uals of the same race, wholly independent of each other, to have 
existed at the same time, and to have been the foundation of so 
many distinct families, there must exist, among the animals of the 
same race, an inextinguishable relation of affmity by blood. The 
whole object of the famous Herd Book is, indeed, to trace back 
all these diverging streams to a single fountain, and thus, by an 
uninterrupted descent, to demonstrate the purity of the blood. 
But our ignorance, and the consequent limitation of human 



LIVE STOCK. 305 

power, are evinced by other facts. Although there arc frequent 
approaches to excellence, yet no human sagacity can command 
results. Animals of the same family often differ essentially 
among themselves. Pigs of the same litter seldom fail to present 
a variety ; and twin animals are frequently marked by peculiar and 
striking distinctions from each other. The famous bull Comet 
is still considered as the unrivalled paragon of excellence ; the 
celebrated Durham ox remains without a successful competitor ; 
and the brothers and sisters of the well-known Cliarlemont ox, 
shown in various parts of the United States, and afterwards re- 
ceived in England as an animal of most extraordinary size and fat- 
ness, were none of them remarkable for any peculiar excellence. 
This was strongly evinced at a recent letting of rams, or tups. 
as they are here designated, which I attended, at the residence 
of one of the best farmers, and one of the most eminent breeders 
of Southdown sheep, in the kingdom, Mr. Jonas Webb, of Ba- 
braham, in Cambridgeshire. Here were exhibited one hundred 
and seventy-seven animals of the finest description, bred with all 
the care which it seems possible to exercise, and with all the 
skill which great acuteness of judgment and long experience 
could give. Yet the differences among these animals, in form, 
symmetry, size, quantity and quality of wool, were so great, 
that while the services of some of them, for a season, were rated 
at five guineas, those of others readily commanded fifty guineas. 
But although human sagacity and power can command no 
more, it should be matter of grateful surprise that so much is 
within their reach. The great law that like produces like, 
though it may not be invariable, is, comparatively, of universal 
operation. Good qualities are propagated by the union of ani- 
mals possessing good qualities; and defects, and faults, and 
infirmities, are, in like manner, extended and aggravated. The 
application of this principle, or physical law, has, in this country, 
been most marked in its results. From all that I have seen, 
there seems to me reason to doubt the power of any man to 
produce what may be called an entirely new breed, or to do any 
thing more than, by his skill, to modify or improve such as al- 
ready exist. This, however, is often done in a most remarkable 
manner. The old proverb certainly holds true, that "a good 
cow may have a bad calf: " but then it is much more likely that 
she Avill have a good one. than that a bad cow will have a good 
26* 



306 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

calf. The confidence with which some persons speak of what 
can be done, and what they can do, is often excessive ; but what 
has been accomphshed by selection, by crossing, and by the 
conjunction of peculiar properties, is surprising. There seems a 
limit, beyond which, perhaps, no person can go. The particular 
breed may be altered and improved, but an entirely new breed 
cannot be produced ; and, in every departure from the original, 
there is a constant tendency to revert back to it. The stock of 
the improved Durham cattle seems to establish this point. If we 
have tlie true history of it, it is the result of a cross of a Tees- 
water bull with a Galloway cow. The Teeswater or Yorkshire 
stock are a large and coarse-boned animal ; the object of this 
cross was to get a smaller bone and greater compactness. By at- 
tempting to carry this improvement, if I may so say, still further, 
by breeding continually in and in, — that is, with the members 
of the same family, in a close degree of affinity, — the power 
of continuing the species seems to become extinct ; at least, it ap- 
proximates to such a result ; the race becomes deteriorated. On 
the other hand, by wholly neglecting all selection, and without 
an occasional good cross with an animal of some foreign blood, 
there appears a tendency to go back to the large-boned, long- 
legged animal, from which the improvement began. One point 
seems admitted, that, since the days of Mr. C. Colling, the great 
founder of what is called the improved short horns, though 
the race has become diflused to an extraordinary extent, and 
multitudes of fine animals are now produced where then there 
were few, yet no higher excellence has been reached than that 
to which he attained. The greatest stress is every where laid 
upon purity of blood ; and yet it is rather an anomalous fact, in 
this case, that Mr. Ceiling's famous stock was the result of a 
cross between a Teeswater bull and a Galloway cow ; that some 
of the best animals in the country, for size, and fatness, and 
milk, have been the progeny of a first cross with a different 
breed ; and that an extreme limitation, in breeding, to the same 
family has been almost invariably followed by the deterioration 
of the stock. " There are several instances of superior animals 
bred in the closest affinity ; whilst, in a very great majority of 
cases, the failure has been excessive and lamentable. It was no- 
torious that the stock got by Comet out of cows that were stran- 



LIVE STOCK. 307 

gers in blood, were far superior to those from cows more nearly 
akin. Mr. Mason, of Chilton, commenced breeding short horns 
from the same parents as Mr. C Colling, and, for a certain period, 
pursued it very successfully ; but, being deprived of the privilege 
of sending his cows to the Ketton (Durham) bulls, he was con- 
strained to use those of his own breeding ; and the losses he sus- 
tained, in his young stock, were so great that, at one time, his 
show cows were reduced to four ; but by using the bull Jupiter, 
whose affinity of blood was supposed to be remote, he again be- 
came a successful breeder." * It would be contrary to all observa- 
tion and experience, to deny the exclusive merits of difterent 
breeds, and the tendency of all animals to propagate their like ; 
but it would be equally so, to deny that extreme results often 
contradict our expectations, and that both science and observa- 
tion are, occasionally, at a loss to determine the influences by 
which these irregularities are brought about, or by what means 
they may be controlled. 

In treating of the live stock of Great Britain, it is obvious, 
that my remarks must be brief and desultory, upon a subject on 
which many volumes have been, and still niay be, written. 

1. Horses. — Among the most improved animals in the king- 
dom, horses take a prominent place ; and a circumstance of dif- 
ference, in this matter, between England and the United States, 
which strikes one at first sight, may be called the division of 
labor among the horses. The American horse, in most of the 
states, is, generally, a horse of all work. Here, the horses are 
bred and trained for, and exclusively confined to, particular de- 
partments — sporting, pleasure, travelling, draught or agricultural 
labor ; and nothing is more rare, than the transfer of the animal 
from one department to the other. So we find the race-horse, 
the hunter, the carriage-horse, the draught-horse, the roadster,, 
the saddle-horse, the pony for children and ladies, the general 
hack, and the farm-horse. This comes of the immense wealth 
of the people, and is adapted to give them the best advantages 
of each kind. It may surprise some of my friends, to tell them, 
that I have more than once found forty hunting horses in one 



* On Short Horn Cattle, by I. Wright. Journal of Royal Agricultural Society^ 
vol. vii. p. 1. 



308 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

gentleman's stable, for himself and his huntsmen ; and in one 
instance, I found a stud of eighty horses, of different kinds, ex- 
chisive of the farm-horses. The perfection to which these ani- 
mals have been brought, the condition in which they are kept, 
the tenderness, and kindness, and care, with which they are 
treated, and the admirable manner in which they are groomed, 
are circumstances, here, all over the country, in the highest de- 
gree worthy of remark. I have already referred to them. Their 
hours of rest, of feeding, and labor, are observed with strict- 
ness ; their stables are spacious, lofty, well-ventilated, and 
adapted to preserve, as far as may be, an equable temperature ; 
they are carefully bedded, and cleanly littered, and whatever 
would be offensive, at once removed ; they are thoroughly cur- 
ried, and brushed, and a horse brought into the stable, in a state 
of perspiration, is never left until he is completely dried by rub- 
bing; nor, in any case, have I seen a horse left to stand still, ex- 
posed to a cold draught of air. The treatment of them is most 
exemplary and creditable ; and is no more than just to animals, 
incapable of taking care of themselves, to whom we are indebted 
for so much of pleasure, and so much of profit. At the house 
of an eminent nobleman, whose hospitality I enjoyed, it was the 
invariable custom of the family, — ladies and guests, as well as 
the master, — about nine o'clock in the evening, to go, by a covered 
passage, into the stables, where thirty horses were kept, to see 
that the grooms and ostlers were at their post, that the horses 
were well, and cared for, and the stable in good order. Nothing 
could exceed the cleanliness and order in which every thing ap- 
peared. At one of tlie principal breweries in London, where 
forty of the largest size dray-horses are kept, the manager in- 
formed me that, after six years hard service, the horses receive 
their freedom, are sent into the country, exempted from all labor, 
and kindly cared for during the rest of their lives. I confess, in 
observing these kind provisions, and this extraordinary care, I 
have not been able to suppress the wish, that many of the bipeds, 
who share Avith these animals in the labor of the field, — not un- 
frequcntly performing the hardest part of it, — could experience, 
in their own persons, an equal care, and find in their cottages, on 
their return from a hard day's work, even a moiety of the com- 
forts with wliich the stables of their co-laborers are provided. It 
would be doing great injustice, to say that this is not often done 



LIVE STOCK. 309 

by many persons, who have no greater pleasure than in provid- 
ing for the comfort and welfare of their dependants. It is only 
to be regretted that the practice is not universal.* 

In the breweries in London, and in the drays in the cities, 
horses of an enormous size are employed ; and the same kind of 
horses are employed on many of the farms. The weight of one 
of them, ascertained in my presence, exceeded seventeen hundred 
pounds; and he was by no means extraordinary for size. I do 
not desire to see such horses introduced among the farmers of 
the United States. Their motion is slow and clumsy, and their 
keep expensive. In cities, where the vehicles are heavy, 
and the burdens of coal, and beer, and other goods, very great, 
they are well suited to the service for which they are used. 
As far as proportion, color, and action, are concerned, they are, 
certainly, magnificent animals. With many farmers, these horses 
are raised, not as being preferred for farm labor, but for sale in 
the cities ; and, after being broken to service on the farm, are, at 
a proper age, sent to market. 

But the horse best adapted to agricultm-al purposes is of a 
smaller size, a compact form, short, strong, and muscular limbs, 
full-breasted, and with round buttocks, of which a favorable 
representation may be found in the plate accompanying my first 
report. There are three breeds of horses in the kingdom, 
distinguished for their valuable properties as farm-horses ; — 
these are the Cleveland Bay, a horse of great strength, and good 
size and figure ; the Sufi"olk Punch, a large and serviceable 
horse ; and especially the Clydesdale horse, almost exclusively 

* No person can have passed through the highly-improved territory of the 
Duke of Buccleuch, in Dumfriesshire, which tJie public road traverses for more 
than twenty miles, and observed the clean and comfortable cottages of the la- 
borers, which constantly meet the eye ; nor have seen the almost luxurious pro- 
vision made bv the Duke of Devonshire for his dependants, in his picturesque 
village of Edensor ; nor the humane provision made by the late Lord Leicester 
for his aged and decayed laborers, at Holkham ; nor have witnessed the extraor- 
dinary and beneficent exertions of Lady Noel Byron, by allotments, loan, and 
benefit societies, and industrial schools, for the comfort, instruction, and improve- 
ment of her dependants, and the poor ; nor the beneficent and j)arental conduct 
of many, mamj others, to whom the strong and unaffected attachment of their 
laborers and dependants evinces the deepest sense of kindness, but whose names 
it might seem invidious to mention, — without a grateful acknowledgment of the 
goodness of Heaven, in making minds so just and generous the almoners of its 
bounty. 



310 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

preferred among the excellent, farmers of Scotland, particularly 
in the Lothians. I Jiave seen nothing superior, in my humble 
judgment, to the last horse, for farm labor, combining good size, 
with compactness, strength, and action. In Ayrshire, the far- 
mers, being of an opinion that their fine breed of horses was 
deteriorating, recently imported a stallion from Flanders. This 
horse was a model of cornpactness, and strength. He was fifteen 
and a half hands high ; his girth, behmd his shoulders, was seven 
feet, four inches, and seventy-five inches round his neck, at the 
base ; he was twelve years old, and cost sixty guineas, in 
Flanders. 

The farm-horses, in ploughing; are never worked more than 
eight hours a day. The ploughman feeds and cleans them at 
four o'clock in the morning. They are harnessed, and the 
plough started, at six o'clock. They are brought to the stable 
again at two o'clock, and fed, and thoroughly groomed, curried, 
cleaned, bedded, &c., and left for the night, at dark. The feed 
is almost always cut for them, or if given long, given in small 
quantities ; and the oats and beans are crushed. On one farm, 
the allowance for a farm-horse of the largest size was, two 
bushels of oats, and one peck of beans, and two trusses of hay, 
(fifty-six pounds each,) per week, in winter; in summer, green 
feed, vetches, clover, or rye grass, was substituted for the hay. 
The general allowance is a peck of grain, half oats and half 
beans, and from fourteen to sixteen pounds of hay, per day. 
The army allowance for a horse is fourteen pounds of hay, ten 
pounds of oats, and seven pounds of straw, per day ; " with hard 
work, less hay, and more corn ; with little work, less corn and 
more hay." The horses belonging to the Queen's Guards, 
which are often to be seen in the streets of London, and always 
on state occasions, are beautiful animals, and subjects of univer- 
sal admiration. They are of a black color, and bred, I believe, 
on the continent, purposely for the army. 

The general rule is, to keep, on arable farms, a pair of horses 
for every forty acres ; in some cases, the proportion of land to 
the team is larger. One of the best farmers in Scotland allows 
seven horses for two hundred acres. His land is accessible, and 
extremely favorable for all farming operations. The cost of 
keeping a working horse (exclusive of interest or deterioration) he 
estimates at twentv-five pounds, or more than one hundred and 



LIVE STOCK. 311 

twenty dollars, per year. These expenses all have reference to 
the local prices of agricultural produce ; and I give them rather 
as matters of curiosity, than of direct utility to my American 
readers. The amount of ploughing for a day's work is an acre 
of land, but, in some cases, an acre and a half. One farmer 
speaks of ploughing, usually, seven acres in a week, with one pair 
of horses. The furrow slice varies from eight to eleven inches, 
and the distance travelled, in such case, is from twelve to six- 
teen miles a day. It does not lie within my province to speak 
of other horses than those employed in agricultural labor. 

Oxen are employed for farm labor to a small extent, and in 
few counties. On Lord Leicester's farm, at Holkham, so much 
and so long celebrated, they are used and worked in leather har- 
nesses ; and in some places, I have seen them worked singly in 
harness. The general impression is, that they will not do so 
much work as horses, are not so easily trained, and are more 
expensive to keep ; every one of which positions is, in my opin- 
ion and experience, erroneous. I believe these opinions arise out 
of an entire ignorance of the training of oxen. Nothing can be 
more awkward than the management of them, which I have 
seen here. As they are managed and trained in the best parts 
of New England, their docility is perfect ; working without a 
driver, in the ploughfield, as well as with one ; performing as 
much work as a pair of horses, and performing it as well ; cost- 
ing comparatively nothing for harness, since a wooden yoke and 
bows, and iron chains, which will last for years, are all that are 
required ; when well cared for until six years old, paying, by their 
growth, for the feed which they consume ; and, when kept in 
good condition, as they always should be, if ruined for work by 
any injury, or if at an age to be turned off for beef, exposing 
their owner to no loss. In every thing but road work, I am 
quite satisfied that a pair of well-trained oxen will perform 
as much work as a pair of horses, and at a much less expense. 
This was the opinion of an English ploughman, who lived 
some time in my service, and worked wholly with oxen. He 
had, before this, been used to horses, and a more skilful plough- 
man I have never seen on either side of the water. The use 
of oxen has become much less common than before the intro- 
duction of the improved breeds of cattle, which are now brought 



312 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

SO early to maturity. Formerly, it was not the custom to send 
oxen to market, before five years old ; now the Durham stock, 
and others, go at eighteen months to three years old. Under this 
arrangement, there is no opportunity to get any work out of 
them. 

The Scotch plough with two horses abreast, and seldom use 
more than two. In many parts of England, horses are worked 
tandem ; and I have sometimes seen five and six, at length, to a 
single plough. This is certainly excessive, and the turnings, in 
such case, most inconvenient ; but the motive for putting the 
horses at length is, that, where the land is heavy, it may not be 
trodden hard. 

2. Neat Cattle. — There are several distinct breeds in Great 
Britciin, of which I shall not undertake to give a description in 
full. Such descriptions already fill volumes. The principal 
breeds which have fallen under my notice are the improved short 
horns, the Hereford, the North and South Devon, the Stafi"ord- 
shire long horns, the Ayrshire, the polled Aberdeenshire or Gallo- 
way, the Kyloes, or West Highlanders, and the Kerry. There 
are other breeds, and animals of every cross, variety, and mixture. 
It would seem that nothing can exceed the perfection to which 
many of the individuals of each of these breeds are brought. 
At the Christmas show of the Smithfield Club, they appear in ele- 
phantine proportions, like so many moving masses of fat. As I 
have already observed, the different breeds have their exclusive 
partisans. That excellent friend of agriculture, the late Lord 
Spencer, was the great patron of the improved short horns ; yet 
he kept the Alderney to supply butter, and the West Highlanders 
to furnish meat, for his own table. The late Lord Leicester, so 
many years at the head of the English farmers, preferred the 
North Devon. The Duke of Bedford, eminent for his agricul- 
tural improvements, and for, perhaps, one of the most complete 
agricultural establishments in the world, prefers the Herefords : 
and so with Mr. .Tohn Hudson, of Castle Acre, in Norfolk, whose 
agricultural authority is of the highest character. The farmers 
who are fatteners of stock are always anxious to purchase the 
Scots or West Highland cattle, as being always sure of a market 
and of returning a fair profit. 



LIVE STOCK. 



313 



(1.) The Improved Short Horns. — The improved short horns 
are a singularly beautiful breed of animals, and, it will be admit- 
ted, are the most popular breed in Great Britain. In perfection, 
they are of large weight, fine-boned, come to maturity early, 
exhibit great proof upon being killed, and although they are 
admitted to be great consumers, and require very high feeding, 
they are considered a very profitable stock for the farmer. They 
are, it is said, originally of the Teeswater breed, imported from 
Holland, but greatly improved by selection and crossing. That 
an individual, in his lifetime, should effect such improvements, as 
all admit Mr. Colling, the reputed founder of the breed, did, and 
derive immense profits from his enterprise, is a fact full of en- 
couragement. They are commonly brought to market before 
three years old, and often at eighteen months. The calves 
often run with the cow six months, and are frequently fed with 
artificial food from the time they can be made to take it until 
they are sent to the butcher. The best of these animals, how- 
ever, have a strong natural tendency to keep fat ; but they are 
not suited to a short pasture, or a scanty manger. It is not in- 
variable, that animals consume in proportion to their size ; but it 
can hardly be questioned, that there is ordinarily some relation 
between the size and the proportion of food required. It will, 
I think, not be denied that they are great consumers. An intel- 
ligent herdsman, who had been accustomed to the feeding of 
fattening animals for eighteen years, and, with respect to whose 
judgment, I know of no private interest to affect it, gave it to 
me, as his decided experience, that the short horns require a third 
more food than the Herefords. This judgment must go for 
what it is worth. 

The high-bred animals are not remarkable for their milking 
properties. There are exceptions, but most of these animals are 
inferior in the quantity and quality of the milk ; though there 
can be no doubt that both quantity and quality will be affected 
by the kind of feed supplied them. Individuals of rare excel- 
lence, in this respect, may be selected from among them ; but the 
extraordinary accounts which are sometimes given of whole 
herds or families, must be received with a degree of distrust. 
The finest herd of short horns which met my observation — 
though it must be remembered that, if I have seen many, they are 
VOL. u. 27 



314 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

but few compared with the whole number to be seen — I found 
in Lincohishire, in the possession of one of the best farmers in 
England, a tenant of Lord Yarborough. They were not iu the 
Herd Book, but had been in possession of the family more than 
fifty years. A superior lot of cows, in appearance and condition, 
I never saw, nor expect to see; but they were not distinguished 
for their milking properties. The property to take on fat is con- 
sidered inconsistent with that of large secretions of milk. This 
is not without exceptions within my own knowledge, but is 
generally true. I shall recur again to the milking properties of 
the short horns. The beef of the short horns, though good, is 
not considered of the highest quality. This may be partly as- 
cribed to the early age at which they are killed. It is believed, 
however, that few animals, under proper management, pay better 
for the care bestowed upon them ; and although the prices of 
the present day are small compared with what they were at one 
time, this may be traced to various causes, not implying a les- 
sening of public esteem for the breed. The breed, for instance, 
is greatly extended, and good animals are not difficult to be 
procured. The prices formerly given were much too high, 
owing to the small number of animals to be had, and the much 
higher comparative prices of all agricultural products, at that 
time. For labor, as far as my observation goes, they are not 
used at all. 

(2.) Herefords. — The great competing breed with the short 
horns are the Herefords, which, excepting in Herefordshire and 
the neighborhood, are not so widely spread as the short horns. 
It would be difficult to adjust the rival claims between these two 
great breeds. The Hereford cattle are exceedingly neat in their 
limbs and form, and of good size. At the show of the Smith- 
field Club, held at Christmas, the highest prices appear to alter- 
nate between the short horns and the Herefords. Under proper 
treatment, they may be brought to as early maturity as the short 
horns. I think I have never seen so fat animals as some Htn-e- 
fords; but the fat is not so evenly diffused as in the short horns, 
and seems laid on in large lumps and patches, which is an ob- 
jectionable circumstance. They are not so great consumers as 
the short horns, and their thrift is remarkable. Some farmers in 



LIVE STOCK. 



315 



England prefer them, as fatting beasts, to the short horns.* This 
may be mere prejudice, — for what class of men, and, in respect to 
many subjects, what men are free from prejudices ? My observa- 
tion inclines me to the belief, that, in equal numbers, there are as 
many good Herefords as short horns ; and the thriftiness of many 
of them is quite remarkable. A large proportion of the short 
horns stand too high, and have too long legs. The Herefords 
are not exempt from this fault, but have less of it ; but they lack 
substance and breadth behind. In respect to handling, observ- 
ing persons know that, in this matter, there is every diversity 
among animals of the same breed, and that it is rather the char- 
acteristic of individuals than of a tribe ; but I may hazard the 
general remark, that, as a breed, few animals handle better than 
the Hereford. I heard from some individuals very much in favor 
of their milking qualities, but from, these persons, though a long 
time owners of the stock, I could get no authenticated state- 
ments. The answer to my inquiries always was, that they 
kept no exact accounts, but knew their cows were excellent 
milkers, and gave a very large yield. The habit of praising 
our cows is, in most cases, very much like men's habits of 
thought in regard to their children. In this matter, the geese of 
most men are swans. In general, the Herefords rank low as 
dairy animals, and are considered inferior. This is the general 
impression; — as such I give it. Public opinion is not always 
well founded, and I shall leave to others to determine, in this 
case, what value to attach to it. 

(3.) The Devons. — The Devons, taking then- name from 
the beautiful county of Devonshire, where they are principally 
found, are of two kinds, the North and the South Devons. The 
North Devons are a comparatively small race of animals, with 
long and beautifully-turned horns, of a deep red color, short- 
legged, and compactly built, exhibiting, to my eye, the perfection 
of form and symmetry, with soft, silky coats, and with hair in 



* Upon reading the above, a very intelligent and experienced salesman informs 
me that, although the very best Herefords command as good prices as formerly, 
vet the ordinary Herefords which come to market are very hard of sale, and are 
the least esteemed beasts which appear at Smithfield. This he considers attrib- 
utable to some mistake in their breeding, or to breeding too long in near affinity 



316 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

curled and waving lines, in appearance like the most beautiful 
varied mahogany that ever came from under the plane of the cab- 
inet-maker. They do not attain a large size, but they are so 
compact, that they weigh heavily for their size, and there is no 
waste in them. The South Devons are animals of a much 
larger frame, often coarse-boned, attaining sometimes to a consid- 
erable size, not remarkable for thrift, coming late to maturity, and, 
in truth, identical with the great mass of cattle to be found in New 
England. It is but just to say, in respect to the South Devons, 
that, as far as I could learn, no particular pains have been taken 
to improve their breed, and to see what could be made of them, 
as in the case of the short horns, the Herefords, and the North 
Devons. 

The North Devons are, as a breed, most highly and deservedly 
esteemed. They have the preference of all other breeds for the 
yoke, being strong, active, and of great endurance ; add to this, 
a remarkable docility, and good temper. It is generally thought 
that they do not arrive at maturity as early as the short horns or 
the Herefords ; — I do not know that the same pains have been 
taken to force their progress. An eminent breeder of North 
Devons contradicts this. He is one of the most experienced 
farmers in Great Britain : he has been long accustomed to rear 
them, and insists that more money can be made from them than 
from any other breed. Of course, this opinion would not meet 
universal assent, and would be rejected by the advocates of some 
of the other breeds; but the long experience of this farmer, and 
his admirable and successful husbandry in every department, 
entitle his opinions to great consideration ; and my confidence in 
him is such, that, in parliamentary language, in a division of the 
house, I should be strongly inclined to go into the same lobby 
with him. They are highly esteemed in Smithfield market for 
the excellence of their meat, and because its size is more agree- 
able, on most tables, than the huge joints of some other breeds. 
In weight, they are much excelled ; but the opinion of their 
advocates is, that more meat can be made from them with the 
same amount of feed. Of their dairy properties I shall speak 
presently.* 

* A fine example is given of this stock, in the frontispiece to my Fourth Re- 
port, vol. i. p. 285. 



LIVE STOCK. 317 

(4.) The Ayrshire. — The Ayrshire stock prevails, princi- 
pally, in Ayrshire, Scotland, and is certainly a beautiful race of 
animals. It is maintained by some that they arc of the same 
breed, with some slight variations, as the improved Durham short 
horns. However they may approximate each other in crossing, as 
races, I believe them to be as distinct as the short horns and the 
Devons, and a practised eye will easily discern the difference. 
They are considerably smaller than the short horns ; much lower 
on the leg ; with larger bodies in proportion to their size ; not of 
such length as the short horns ; in general, with finer limbs ; their 
faces not quite so long, nor so tapering. Their color somewhat 
resembles that of the short horns, though there is less of white, and 
the white not so snowy and clear, and none of the roan color, which 
often makes the Durhams extremely beautiful. They are occa- 
sionally spotted with white, as if large flakes of snow, or feathers, 
had been scattered over them. They are of good thrift, but do 
not constantly show the same good condition as the best short 
horns, especially when in milk. When dry, however, they 
fatten well ; and no animals can be more prized than they, in the 
highly improved and picturesque county of Ayr, where they are 
principally found. They are chiefly valued for the dairy, and 
are considered by many persons as, in this respect, excelling all 
others, — a conclusion to which I demur, for reasons which I shall 
presently give. I am not about to depreciate them, for a fine 
Ayrshire cow, with her full udder, is greatly to be admired for 
her beauty and her product. It is said that they always do 
much better in their own locality than when they are removed, 
for example, into England. I know other animals who do not 
thrive so well from home as at home. It is said of the Scotch 
themselves, such is their native acuteness and enterprise, that 
they will thrive in whatever country they may be thrown. 
This does not appear to apply to their cows. There may, how- 
ever, be another reason. I recollect a man's having purchased a 
cow, represented as remarkable for her extraordinary yield of 
milk, from one of the richest pastures that could be found ; and 
upon taking her home to shorter commons, he complained to the 
former owner that he had imposed on him. " Sir," said he, in 
reply, " I sold you my cow, but I did not sell you my pasture." 

The Ayrshire cows are extremely thrifty when dry. When 
fatted, the four quarters weigh from twenty to thirty tron stone, 
27* 



318 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

of twenty-four pounds each, that is, from four hundred and 
eighty to seven hundred and twenty pounds. An Ayrshire farm- 
er informed me that he had had cows weigh fifty-one stone, 
or one thousand two hundred and twenty-four pounds, each. He 
says, there are no better feeders, and that, when fatted, the beef 
is as good as that of the West Highland cattle. 

(5.) The West Highland Cattle^ or Kyloes. — This is a small 
breed of black cattle, bred in the remote Highlands, and on 
the northern islands of Great Britain, and brought in immense 
numbers to the south to be fed. They are short, hardy, thick- 
set, always in good condition, and exceedingly thrifty, when 
brought from the short feed of the north into the rich pastures 
and to the abundant mangers of the south. Their size is small, 
but their weight very great in proportion, as they are extremely 
compact and solid. Their meat is esteemed of the best 
quality in the market, and commands, usually, a halfpenny a 
pound more than any other. They are bought in, at times, 
quite young, and kept until three years old, when they are sent to 
market. They are thought, when well purchased, to pay a bet- 
ter profit than any other ; and on this account, as well as their 
symmetrical shape, — for, taking off the head, and neck, and the 
legs, they would appear to form a perfect parallelogram, — they are 
universal favorites.* No advantage has come, in any way, from 
crossing these cattle with any other breed. There is a small 
kind of black cattle, without doubt allied to the West High- 
landers, which are brought to Smithfield market, and there vul- 
garly known as runts. They cannot properly be called a dis- 
tinct breed. They are extremely compact and heavy, and their 
meat excellent. No beef animals in the market sell so well. 

(6.) The Aberdeenshire Polled Cattle, near relatives of the Gal- 
loway and the Angus cattle, if my memory serves me as to the 
name, are likewise black in color, and admirable in appearance. 
They, also, are deemed highly profitable stock both for thrift and 
for the dairy ; and a herd of cows, I believe of the latter breed, 
horned, entirely black, excepting their udders, exhibiting the 

* A just representation of one may be found at the beginning of my Third 
Report, vol. i. p. 189. 



LIVE STOCK. 319 

Strongest indications of being most abundant milkers, shown 
3,t the cattle show at Dundee, have, in my view, rarely been 
surpassed. Of the Aberdeenshire cattle, a picture of a superior 
specimen is given, vol. i. p. 385. 

(7.) The Aldei'ney or Guernseij Cattle. — Of all the cows 
which I ever saw, the handsomest, — that which gave my eye the 
most pleasure, that which gave the best promise of being what a 
cow should be, — was an Alderney, or rather, improved Guernsey 
cow, brought from one of the Channel Islands, and shown at the 
meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, at Southampton. 
She was rising two years old, of moderate size, compact, and 
well-shaped, of that yellowish dun color which generally charac- 
terizes the breed, with a large and golden udder, ears of an orange 
color in the inside, a clean and thin neck, and the bright eye of 
a gazelle. This showed to what perfection the breed might be 
brought ; for, in general, they are exceedingly ugly, small, thin, 
coarse-boned, and presenting little more than the skeletons of 
animals, covered with a yellowish, flabby, and coarse hide. 
They come principally from the Channel Islands, Jersey and 
Guernsey, and abound in parts of Hampshire, and counties 
most accessible to these islands. They are valued mostly for 
their milking properties, and not so much, in that respect, for the 
quantity, as for the extraordinarily rich and creamy quality of 
their milk, in which certainly they surpass all other breeds. It 
is stated that no animals will thrive faster, when well-fed and not 
in milk ; and their size is not always inferior. I found at Wel- 
beck, the residefice of the Duke of Portland, a herd of Alderney 
cows, of the size of ordinary cows, and in good condition.* Few 
gentlemen or noblemen in England, resident in the country, are 
without one or more Alderney cows, for the supply of their tables 

* Two Alderney oxen, fatted by that distinguished and liberal friend to agricul- 
tural improvement, Sir Cliarles Morgan, of Tredegar, Wales, weighed alive, the 
one, one thousand six hundred and ninety pounds, the other one thousand six 
hundred and fifty pounds. 

This excellent man, now verging towards ninety years old, but retaining in 
his mind all the elasticity and cheerfulness of youtli, has an annual agricultural 
show on his oAvn estate, free to competition, and, since its institution, has him- 
self given more than five thousand pounds, or twenty-five thousand dollars, in 
premiums. I have had tlio pleasure of attending two of these shows, and wit- 
nessing the grateful enthusiasm with which this agricultural patriarch is received 
among his attached neighbors and friends. 



320 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

with cream and butter ; and I never have had the slightest diffi- 
culty in instantly recognizing their produce. They are kept, in 
some proportion, at some of the large farm dairies in England, for 
the purpose, by mixing their milk with that of other cows of a 
different breed, of giving color to the butter, and richness to the 
cheese ; but I was informed, at one of the best dairy farms in 
Gloucestershire, where forty cows are kept, that a dairy exclu- 
sively of Alderney cows " would not make good cheese, or 
rather would make it too rich ; " and that, beyond a certain pro- 
portion, and that not a large one, it was not advisable to mix 
their milk with that of other cows. So difficult, however, is it 
to determine any thing, that I have found other farmers to state 
that they have succeeded perfectly in making excellent cheese 
from the milk of the Jersey cows. 

The improvement which has taken place in this breed, in the 
Island of Jersey, a specimen of which I have given an account of 
above, is most remarkable ; and in their improved condition, for 
certain purposes, especially for the luxury of cream and butter, it 
would, I think, be impossible to find a more valuable breed. It 
is objected to their beef, that the fat of it is too deeply yellovr, 
but otherwise it is deemed excellent in quality. 

(8.) Dairy or Milking Stock. — The milking or dairy proper- 
ties of the different breeds have been matter of much discussion ; 
and it would be difficult to find a unanimous, perhaps not a gen- 
eral acquiescence in any opinion. This should be an argument 
for forbearance on the part of those persons to whom my judg- 
ment might appear erroneous. Mr. Bates, one of the most dis- 
tinguished breeders of short horns in the kingdom, and a success- 
ful prize winner for his stock, gave mc as his opinion that there 
were two lines of the short horns — the one large milkers, the 
otlicr different. No such marked or sectional distinction has 
come within my observation ; but individnals of remarkable 
productiveness in this respect are constantly to be met with. 
Few things in this world are without exceptions ; but as a gen- 
eral rule, other circumstances being equal, the yield of milk will 
be in proportion to the size of the animal. The cub of an ele- 
phant requires more milk than a calf or lamb, and doubtless 
there is more provided for him. 

The high-bred Durhams arc generally poor milkers. They 



LIVE STOCK. 321 

do not give large quantities ; the milk is not rich in butter prop- 
erties. Now I shall contradict this by some examples, but they, 
I believe, are the exceptions, and not the rule. A Durham or 
short-horn cow, owned in Cambridgeshire, made sixteen pounds 
of butter one week, and at the rate of fourteen for a considerable 
length of time. I have found several that made twelve pounds 
and fourteen pounds of butter, a week. These, however, are rare 
instances. Mr. Bates informed me, that one of Mr. Collins's cows 
gave at one milking, at night, twenty-six and a half quarts ; an- 
other gave twenty-four quarts of milk per day : another, nine- 
teen quarts. I did not understand him to make these statements 
of his own knowledge. His own celebrated cow Duchess gave 
fourteen quarts at a milking. These are all animals of high 
blood ; but it is the general experience of the keepers of such 
animals, that their qualities for milk are inferior. Mr. Bates 
informed me, these were beer quarts. Wine to beer measure is 
as about four to five. 

The Yorkshire or Teeswater cows, from which the improved 
Durham are derived, are large milkers. It is an evidence of this, 
that most of the cows kept in the London milk establishments 
are the Yorkshire. They are, in general, very large animals, and 
their size for fattening, when their milking is over, strongly 
recommends them. In condition, they are variable, a cow giv- 
ing large quantities of milk seldom showing high condition ; 
though even this is not without exceptions. It is rare, however, 
in any case, to find them in low condition. At a large milk 
establishment in Edinburgh, kept by a woman, she told me that 
she had owned a Teeswater or Yorkshire cow, which had given 
twenty-two Scotch pints, or forty-four quarts, of milk, per day. 
I was assured of this woman's credibility ; but then, with a per- 
fect respect for the conscientiousness and good intentions of 
the sex, I habitually distrust their arithmetical accuracy, whether 
in regard to their own age, if they are far on the journey of life, 
or to other matters. It is not in their way to remember num- 
bers exactly. The great astronomer, Mrs. Somervillc, is a rare 
and magnificent exception. 

At a London milk establishment which I have repeatedly 
visited, the yield in milk is chalked upon a board, over the head 
of each cow. Most of them are of the Yorkshire breed. I ob- 
served, in my last visit, one yielding twelve quarts per day, one 



322 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

sixteen quarts, and one, an Ayrshire, twenty quarts. One cow 
was shown to me, a Yorkshire, which had yielded twenty-three 
quarts per day. These were wine quarts, as I understood. 
Their feed, at this time, was half a bushel ale grains, each, 
per day ; twenty-eight pounds of hay ; some potatoes, and newly 
mown grass, the quantity not determined. Ale grains, it is said, 
will make more milk than porter grains. This is the opinion of 
practical men. 

At another milk establishment which I have repeatedly vis- 
ited, two hundred and fifty cows are kept. Here, both Durham 
and Yorkshire are principally kept. They are preferred, as being 
best for milk, but especially as fattening easily, when dry. The 
average yield was stated at eight quarts per day to a cow, through 
the year, and, before '' the disease " prevailed among them, at 
ten quarts. This is certainly a large amount. The cows are 
never turned out; water is given to them in their troughs. They 
appeared in very good condition, — certainly much better than 
the men who attended upon them. They were kept in milk as 
long as they would pay, though one of them had been in milk 
three years, and then gave only three quarts per day. They 
stand upon brick floors. Their feed was one bushel of grains 
in the morning, and one in the evening, with ten pounds of pota- 
toes, and twenty pounds of mangel-wurzel to each cow, per day. 
One truss (fifty-six pounds) of hay was divided among ten in 
the morning, and one truss among twenty in the evening. In 
the proper season, grass — clover or rye grass — is supplied, but 
the quantity not determined. In some cases, one bushel and a 
half of grains, forty pounds of mangel-wurzel, and ten or twelve 
pounds of clover hay, constituted the allowance of each cow. 
This must be considered as very liberal ; and what better repays 
such liberality than a good cow ? * 

* I may observe, in ])assing', that two strippers were employed at this estab- 
lishment to follow the milkers ; and that a fine of a shilling was always levied 
upon the milker, when any milk was found after he or she had left the cow. The 
milk is sent out in sealed or locked vessels, containing eight gallons each, which 
are carried upon men's or women's shoulders, and distributed over the town. 
Where the vessels are locked, the milk cannot be adulterated after it goes into 
the hands of the distributors. What perils it passes through before that time, 
those who use it can best judge. The labor of distributing seems severe upon 
women, who arc much employed for this purpose, and who arc principally from 
Wales; but, in general, they arc examples of ruddy health and great muscular 



LIVE STOCK. 323 

In St. James's Park, where several very large cows — Yorkshire 
— are kept tied constantly through the day, for the purpose of sup- 
plying a glass of milk fresh from the spring, for those whose 
unadulterated taste can relish it, and where the cows are petted 
and highly fed, I have occasionally inquired for the yield. The 
answer, from an intelligent and civil keeper, has been, sixteen 
quarts per day, and, within his knowledge, never more. 

The first cross of the improved Durham stock with the Ayr- 
shire or the Devon has, I may say, almost invariably, produced 
a fine milking animal. This point may be deemed established. 
Innumerable instances of this have come under my own ob- 
servation. I found one instance, in Leicestershire, of a cross 
between a Durham and an Alderney. The cow, the progeny of 
such cross, produced sixteen pounds of butter per week, for ten 
successive weeks, upon grass only. This farmer had twenty- 
two cows, nearly all of them high-bred Durham stock ; but he 
candidly stated that they were not good milkers. 

The Ayrshire stock are generally deemed the best milking or 
dairy stock in the kingdom. This is a strong statement : my 
own observations, which were, however, of necessity limited, 
would make me hesitate in speaking so emphatically. Their 
general reputation is, certainly, strongly in their favor. 

The excellent farmers of Ayrshire — and it would be difficult 
in any part of the kingdom to find their superiors — are most em- 
phatical in their preference of their own cows for the dairy. 
Some of the large farmers, under what is called the howing or 
hoyening* system, let them to smaller farmers, who pay the 
owner ten pounds a year for the cow. The owner provides for 
the cow, and incurs all risks of injury or death. The lessee 
takes the entire care and management of the cow, and generally 
gets for his profit two pounds to three pounds per cow. This 
speaks favorably for the stock, though, to ascertain the exact 
result, the market value of the produce, and the price of dairy 
labor, and other circumstances, should be known. 

I visited, in Ayrshire, a principal dairy farmer, of high rep- 
utation. His cows are all of the pure Ayrshire ; he will have 

power. In several parts of London, one is entertained, twice a day, with the cry 
of " Milk from the cow ! " which is the signal that the cow is passing your door, 
and, if so you please, you may draw the precious beverage from the fountain. 
* Boyen means milk-pail. 



324 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



no other. They were extremely beautiful animals. His best 
cows, in the best of the season, gave fifty-four pounds of milk 
per day. If, as is usually reckoned, a pint is a pound, this would 
be twenty-seven quarts per day. The average yield was forty 
pounds per day, or twenty quarts. Yet the amount of butter 
yielded by them was one pound per day, it requiring forty 
pounds of milk to produce one pound of butter. They were at 
grass, and had no extra feed. This was a large proportion of 
milk for the butter. This farmer was then (September 26th) 
milking thirty-five cows, from which he sold, the previous week, 
one hundred and fifty pounds of butter, — not a large amount. It 
is stated, confidently, upon authority which I personally know 
is entitled to entire confidence, that an Ayrshire cow has given 
eighteen Scotch pints, or nearly thirty-six English quarts, per day ; 
and that a three-year-old heifer gave, for six weeks after calving, 
fourteen pints, or twenty-eight quarts, per day. These were 
extraordinary animals. 

The account given by a celebrated writer on dairy husbandry, 
that '' there are thousands of the best Ayrshire cows, which, in 
their best condition and well fed, will yield four thousand quarts 
of milk per year, and produce three hundred and seventy-five 
pounds of butter each, — and that, in a dairy of sixty cows, every 
one yielded her own weight, annually, of the best cheese to be 
met with in Scotland," — must, I think, have been penned some 
evening when the northern lights, the aurora borealis, Avere pecu- 
liarly brilliant in a Scottish sky. I do not deny the truth of 
these statements ; but my own observation has not confirmed 
them. 

The statement of a farmer in Stirlingshire, of the highest emi- 
nence, given to me, was, that his Ayrshire cows, in the best of 
the season, averaged one pound of butter per day ; that he has 
known two Ayrshire cows to make two pounds two ounces each 
per day : and that with him sixteen quarts of milk produced 
one pound of butter. 

The North Devon stock have some strong advocates as a milk- 
ing stock. The most productive cow in butter which I have 
found was a North Devon, which, for several weeks in succes- 
sion, without extra feed, produced twenty-one pounds of butter 
per week. The character of the owner places the fact beyond 
a doubt. Mr. Bloomfield, tlie eminent tenant of Lord Leicester, 



LIVE STOCK. 325 

after many years experience, states that his North Devon cows 
will give an average of four pounds of butter per week, through 
the year. One English pint of milk, as he adds, will produce 
one ounce of butter ; that is, eight quarts will make a pound, I 
give his statement ; but the case will obviously be affected by 
the length of time which has elapsed from the calving of the 
animal, by the mode of feeding, and whether it is of the milk 
first or last drawn from the udder. The celebrated Danvers or 
Oakes cow, in the United States, which made over four hundred 
and eighty pounds of butter in a year, — nineteen and one fourth 
pounds in one week, — and, within my knowledge, sixteen pounds 
a week for more than three months, and another cow, also within 
my knowledge, which produced three hundred and thirty-five 
pounds per year, were evidently of the North Devon blood, though 
not pretended to be pure. The first cross of the Durham with the 
North Devon, as I have remarked, produces an excellent milking 
progeny. Breeding for this object cannot be continued beyond 
a first cross with any certainty of success. 

The Staffordshire long horns, a race which I have not de- 
scribed, but which have always been eminent as milkers, and 
with which Bakewell began his celebrated improvements in stock, 
have produced some excellent milkers, by being crossed with 
the Hereford stock. Two of these animals, owned by a friend, 
an excellent manager of his little farm, as well as a most highly 
esteemed clergyman, in Worcestershire, — two characters not un- 
frequently united, — produced twenty-five pounds of butter per 
week. 

The Kerry cows, of Ireland, — not the very small stock referred 
to page 178, vol. i., — are greatly valued for their milking proper- 
ties. Three of these cows, at a milk establishment near Cork, 
it was stated to me, yielded twenty-one gallons per day, or twenty- 
eight quarts each. This was at Blarney Castle, but T did not 
receive it as " blarney." It was stated to me, on respectable 
authority, that a reverend gentleman in the county of Kerry 
had, the previous year, as the produce of five cows, sent to Liver- 
pool twenty-five firkins of butter, of sixty-four pounds each, which 
would be equal to three hundred and twenty pounds per cow. 
The cows were fed most liberally upon mangel-wurzel. If there 
be no mistake in the size of the firkin, this is certainly a most 
extraordinary yield. 
VOL. II. 28 



326 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



I come, lastly, to speak of the Alderneys as a milking stock. 
I believe it will be admitted, without a dissentient voice, that for 
richness of milk, as a race, they are unrivalled, and this with 
scarcely an exception. I shall state some facts within my knowl- 
edge in regard to quantity, obtained Avithout any extra feeding. 
A farmer in Hampshire owned an Alderney cow, which produced 
fourteen pounds of butter per week, for a period of thirteen weeks. 
When I visited him in the summer, he had six Alderney cows, 
which together had produced fifty pounds of butter per week, 
during the whole season. Another farmer, whose authority is 
above question, assured me that, from four Alderney cows, he 
had made, during the months of May and June, fifty-two pounds 
of butter per week. Colonel Le Couteur, with whose acquaint- 
ance I am honored, states that " the best Alderney or improved 
Guernsey cows give twenty-six quarts of milk in twenty-four 
hours, and fourteen pounds of butter from such milk in one 
week. Such are rare. Good cows afford twenty quarts of milk 
daily, and ten pounds of butter weekly, in the spring and summer 
months." * 

Mr. Bates, the celebrated breeder of short horns, gave me the 
subjoined minutes respecting some trials of the quality of milk 
among stock owned by him : — 

One quart of milk. West Highlanders, produced 2 oz. butter. 
" " " " of half-bred Durham stock, . 2^ «' 
" " " " average of short horns, . . . 1 " " 

Of some select or extra stock, the following was the result : — 

One quart of milk, short horns, produced, . . . 2J oz. butter. 
" " " " of West Highlanders, . . . 2^ " " 

" '' " " of half-bred Durham, . . . 2J '' " 

Of the milk of his famous cow Duchess, a full-bred improved Dur- 
ham, giving fourteen quarts at a milking, each quart produced one 
ounce and a half of butter. Supposing the yield at each milking 
to have been the same, i. e. equal to twenty-eight quarts per day, 
the amount of butter obtained is shown to have been eighteen 
pounds six ounces per week. In the case of another cow 
in his possession, of the same stock, and, I believ^e, the daughter 

* Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. v. part 1, p. 50. 



LIVE STOCK. 327 

of the above, one quart of milk produced two and a quarter 
ounces of butter, but her yield was not stated. 

At Welbeck, at the Duke of Portland's, an Alderney cow, giv- 
ing three and a half gallons of milk per day, produced fourteen 
pounds of butter per week. An improved short horn, yielding six 
gallons per day, produced twelve and a quarter pounds of butter, 
in the same time. 

In a comparative trial between the milk of the Alderney and 
Kerry cows, detailed in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 
Society, vol. ii. p. 420, the result was as follows, as tested by a 
lactometer. 



Portions of cream, 100 ; May, Alderney, 25 

" '■' " '' June, " 20 

" " •' " July, " 23 

" " '' '' August, " 16 

3 pints of Alderney cream gave 1 lb. 8J oz. avoirdupois 

u ii a Kerry " " 1 " 4J " " 



Kerry, 10. 
" 10. 
" 10. 
" 13. 



The farmer attributes " the falling off of the Alderney in cream 
to their being old in milk, and having cast their calves. The 
Kerrys came into pasture fresh in milk after their first calf." 

At a trial of the qualities of milk, on a farm near Liverpool, 
which I visited, the milk of the several breeds was, in point of 
richness in cream, as follows : — 

Yorkshire and common cows, as 8 per cent. 
Ayrshire, " " '' " 15 " " 

Alderney, " " " " 23^ " " 

There is obviously much uncertainty in these trials, from the dif- 
ferent conditions, in various respects, in which the cows might 
have been, and other circumstances. 

The average yield of new milk cheese to a cow, in the dif- 
ferent counties, is given with great uncertainty. The tenant 
farmers are, in general, disposed to conceal the favorable results 
of their husbandry, from the effect it may have upon their rents.* 



* The precision which one often finds in the information given by interested 
parties, may be illustrated by a dialogue with a tenant dairy farmer, in the pres- 
ence of his landlord, to which I myself was a party. 

Inquirer. " Will you have the goodness to tell me the average yield in new 
milk cheese, by the year, of a good cow ? " 



328 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The amount given to me in Gloucestershire was three hundred 
weight, or three hundred and thirty-six pounds, to a cow ; on 
another dairy farm, admirably managed, and where there pre- 
vailed a disposition to give the fullest information, three and a 
half hundred weight, or three hundred and ninety-two pounds. 
In a report on Cheshire cheese-making, it is represented at three 
hundred weight, or three hundred and thirty-six pounds. The 
writer says, in a few instances, five hundred weight, or five hun- 
dred and sixty pounds, are produced to a cow ; but these cases are 
rare. The Cheshire cheese, however, is not pure new milk, as 
some of the cream from the night's millc is abstracted for butter. 
In the best cheese district in New England, I have known, in a 
dairy where a good many cows were kept, the average annual 
yield of entire new milk cheese to have been, in one case, six 
hundred and twenty-seven pounds to a cow ; in another case, 
six hundred and thirty-one pounds. This was extraordinary, and 
showed excellent management. The account may be found in 
my Report of the agriculture of Berkshire. In general the yield 
with us. as here, does not exceed three hundred pounds to a cow. 
The result of a small dairy farm, where twenty cows are kept, 
as presented in a late Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society,* 
gives, as the produce of a cow, three and a half hundred weight 
of cheese, thirty-five pounds of butter, and thirty-five pounds 
of whey butter. Considerable amounts of butter made from the 



Farmer. " There is a great difference in cows." 

/. "I understand that, and do not wish to hold you to an exact statement ; but 
please let me have your opinion of the average annual yield of cows as they 
rise ? " 

F. " A great deal depends on their feed." 

/. "I am aware of that; but, to be more direct, will a good cow, well fed, pro- 
duce one hundred and fifty or three hundred pounds of new milk cheese in a 
year ? " 

F. " That is very difficult to answer." 

I. " It may be difficult to answer. I do not expect you to be very exact ; but a 
general opinion is all I want. What do you think? Will it be one hundred and 
fifty or three hundred pounds ? " 

F. " Some cows will produce more and some less." 

I gave up in despair ; and yet this man every year sold all his dairy produce in 
the market by weight. The secret was, his rent was very low, and he was a 
tenant at will. 

* Vol. vii. part 1, p. 183. 



LIVE STOCK. 329 

whey of cheese go to the market, and bring, within about two- 
pence, the price of whole batter. 

(9.) Improvements in Relation to the United States. — In thus 
giving an account of the neat cattle of Great Britain, I have 
chosen to give my own observations, and facts coming within my 
own knowledge, rather than to refer to any published accounts. 
These are as accessible to others as to myself. The facts which 
an individual circumstanced as I am is likely to collect, unless his 
attention were exclusively directed to the subject, are necessarily 
few, and furnish imperfect grounds for him to speak with confi- 
dence, which I would by no means be thought to do. That the 
neat stock of the United States is of a very mixed and miscella- 
neous description every one must admit. Comparatively few 
attempts have been made in a systematic manner, and upon an 
extended scale, for its improvement. Where they have been 
made, they have frequently failed from want of perseverance, - 
very often from want of encouragement, — and have been some- 
times met with the sneers of ignorance, or the derision of envy. 
The immense improvements which have been made here strike 
every observer with grateful astonishment, and are evinced by 
the accounts which I have given of the progressive size of 
animals in the Smithfield market. Few subjects, in my opinion, 
more concern the interests of American husbandry than the 
improvement of our live stock. Much, undoubtedly, may be 
done by the selection of the best from our own breeds, and by 
breeding only from the best ; but our stock is so crossed, and 
mixed up, and amalgamated, that it must be a difficult process to 
unravel the web, and go back to any original breed. We may 
certainly, with great advantage, avail ourselves of the breeds 
existing here in the highest state of improvement. I am quite 
aware that many very excellent animals have been imported into 
the United States from this country ; and I hope these importa- 
tions will be increased, and that all pains will be taken to pre- 
serve the distinctness and purity of the races, and, if possible, 
improve them. This can only be done by watchful care, good 
judgment, and liberal keeping. 

In making a selection of breeds, it is plain that regard should 
be had to the locality where they are to be placed. The im- 
proved short horns, the Yorkshire, and the Hereford, are best 
28* 



330 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

adapted to the rich and deep pastures of the Middle and Western 
States ; the Ayrshire, and the North Devon, seem to me es- 
pecially suited to New England ; while the West Highland cattle 
would evidently be fitted to the northern, cold, and least pro- 
ductive parts of the country. Great advantages would, in many 
cases, accrue from a first cross between some breeds. As I have 
already said, extraordinarily fine milking animals have been pro- 
duced, in this way, by the crossing of the Durham and the North 
Devon, and by a cross of a short horn, even, with an Alderney. 
An eminent farmer in Ayrshire is accustomed to cross his Ayr- 
shire with the improved Durham breed, and steers of this stock, 
and heifers, after their first calf, have, as I have seen, proved a 
most excellent and valuable stock. To proceed further than this 
has not been attended with favorable results, and is never sure 
of manifesting the best qualities of their progenitors. 

Many persons here have accumulated large profits by breeding 
very superior animals for sale, and the prices have been often ex- 
orbitant. The same results can scarcely be expected in the 
United States, where the means of farmers are very limited, and 
few can enter into spirited pecuniary competitions for the mere 
gratification of taste. But a fair and reasonable profit may be 
expected, under skilful and careful management. 

With us, as well as here, the success of farming mnst mainly 
depend upon such a conduct of the farm as shall not exhaust its 
productive })owers ; or rather, that it shall, from its own resources, 
furnish the means, not only of recruiting its strength, but of 
actually increasing its capabilities of production. There is no 
more obvious way of doing this, than by consuming the produce 
of the farm, mainly, in feeding animals, through whom the 
riches of its vegetation may be returned in a form to furnish 
other and better crops. The stall-feeding of beef-animals, if the 
current prices of agricultural produce are brought into the reck- 
oning, appears, almost always, a losing operation. It will often 
be a serious one. where the animals so fed are of a poor and un- 
thrifty character, or where, as dairy animals, the product is small 
in quantity, and inferior in quality. It is plain how much the 
favorable chances of success are improved, when the stock to 
be fatted are of a kind to fatten rapidly, and to return large 
weights, and where the yield of the dairy stock is of the finest 
quality, and given in abundance. The diff'erence between one 



LIVE STOCK, 331 

hundred and twenty pounds of butter and two hundred pounds, 
as the annual produce of a cow, or between three hundred 
pounds of new milk cheese and five or six hundred, is of easy 
calculation. In the attempts to improve our cultivation, to in- 
crease our products, and to produce the best, we shall not always 
succeed ; and when we have done all we can, we may fail from 
causes wholly inscrutable ; but we must continually try for suc- 
cess, for we are certain not to succeed unless Ave do try. 

I have never considered farming, under any circumstances, as a 
source of extraordinary profits, or the means of rapid accumula- 
tion ; but, under good management, it presents, ordinarily, the 
means of fair, reasonable, and honest gains. It is a hard case, 
when, to an industrious and frugal man, it becomes, as it may, a 
losing concern. Dr. Franklin, with his usual shrewdness, has 
said, that the thermometer, by which to judge of a man's feel- 
ings or enjoyment, is his pocket. When that is empty, the mer- 
cury goes down below " zero." With railway speculators, stock- 
brokers, land-jobbers, and all that class, it may often go up to 
boiling heat ; and in as many instances, it may be found frozen 
in the bulb. Such extremes disturb all comfort ; they always 
endanger morals ; they too often lay waste the human heart, 
stripping it of its best affections, and make shipwreck of life. 
With the farmers, at least, I should be glad always to find it, at 
" temperate." As a means of health, — as a source of rational, and 
delightful, and innocent occupation, — as a branch of high intel- 
lectual philosophy and study, — an enlightened and improved ag- 
riculture may commend itself to many thoughtful, and virtuous, 
and well-governed minds; but to the great mass, in order to 
stimulate their exertions, and to satisfy purposes which are not 
unreasonable, it must be a means of comfortable subsistence and 
profit ; and it can only be made so by adopting, pursuing, and, 
if possible, enlarging by science, experience, inquiry, and prac- 
tice, the great improvements which have already been made in 
this first and best kind of human effort. 

3. Sheep. — In importance, sheep occupy a high place among 
the live stock of Great Britain. It would not be easy to make a 
just comparison between the amount of wool and mutton pro- 
duced and the product of the dairy or the stall ; but the num- 
ber of sheep in Great Britain is very great. The wool finds a 



332 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

demand in the various manufactures of the country ; and mutton 
and lamb make up an extraordinary portion of the food of the 
inhabitants. 

Size, thrift or disposition to fatten, hardihood, early maturity, 
prolificness, quantity and quality of wool, are matters of great 
consideration in these animals. It cannot be said that all these 
properties have been as yet combined, in the highest degree, in 
any one kind of sheep ; perhaps such a combination is impossi- 
ble ; but the efforts for the improvement of the different races, 
and, in several instances, the success of those efforts, have been 
as remarkable as in the improvement of neat stock. 

There are no fine-wooled sheep in Great Britain. The fme- 
wooled sheep of Spain and Saxony have not size enough to 
meet the demands of the markets for mutton ; at least, this is the 
prevalent impression. Perhaps the merino blood might be en- 
grafted into their flocks, to a certain extent, with great advantage ; 
but they fear the diminution of size. Size and fatness are the 
principal objects of the British farmer ; and, in the latter qual- 
ity, it would be undesirable to attempt any further advance. 
The fatness of much of their mutton now renders it alm.ost 
uneatable. 

I do not propose to give a particular account of the different 
kinds of British sheep, but shall speak only generally, with the 
exception of the two prominent breeds. 

(1.) Various Breeds. — The Lincolnshire, the Cotswold, the 
Dorsetshire, the Gloucestershire, the Oxfordshire sheep, arc 
large, coarse-wooled, and coarse-boned sheep, which have their 
partisans in particular districts, and are much crossed and in- 
termixed with others, but have not attained the enviable dis- 
tinction of being, if I may be allowed the term, cultivated and 
improved, so as to form a distinct and extensively popular race. 
Their yield of wool is large, averaging six or seven pounds to a 
fleece, and in some instances more, and of variable price, depend- 
ent, of course, upon the caprices of the market, but, in such a 
country as this, always in demand for coarse fabrics. Some of 
these sheep, the Lincolnshire in particular, attain to an enormous 
size. I have seen some which, it was calculated, would weigh, 
when dressed, above seventy pounds per quarter, — the farmer who 
was feeding them having already killed some which had reached 



LIVE STOCK. 333 

that amount. I shall subjoin the authenticated account given 
me of a Lincolnshire sheep, which will show that I do not 
deal in exaggerations.* The sheep which I saw in the process 
of fattening, it was thought, would closely approximate the same 
weight. I may well say, " they were a sight to behold." 

That any sheep should be found of the extraordinary weight 
of the one given below, will excite the surprise of many of 
my readers. These sheep, however, as a breed, are not dis- 
tinguished for their thrift, and are not sought after in the mar- 
ket. A small Welsh sheep, the meat of which is particularly 
liked, though weighing only about ten pounds a quarter, would 
sooner find a purchaser, and at a higher proportionate price. 

The Dorsetshire sheep have the peculiarity of producing 
lambs twice in the year. On the farm of an enterprising 
cultivator in Worcestershire, whose farming is of a high order,f 
it is the custom to breed from Dorset ewes, twice a year, 

* Weight and particulars of " William the Fourth," a two-shear sheep, fed by 
Henry Healey, Esq., and slaughtered at Brigg, 10th March, 1836. 

lbs. 01. 

Live weight, 434 00 

Dead weight, 304 lOi 

lbs. oz. 

Blood, 11 

Skin, 36 

Pluck, 8 4 

Loose fat, 34 

Entrails, 26 12 

Head, 8 12 

Waste, 4 % 129 5^ 

434 
Dead weight, 304 lbs. 10^ oz., or 76 lbs. 2^ oz. per quarter. 

This sheep clipped sixteen pounds of wool the first time he was shorn, and 
twelve pounds the second time. 

f As I may have no better opportunity, I shall digress here to speak of what 
this farmer has effected, within a few years, by his excellent management. The 
farm consists of one hundred and seventy-two acres of fair land, with a varied 
soil, and when he entered upon its improvement, it was quite " down at the heel." 
He has increased his average product of wheat from twenty-three busiicls to 
thirty-six bushels per acre, and has sometimes produced fifty-one bushels. His 
yield of carrots average thirty-six tons per acre, and his mangel-wurzel twenty- 
five tons. He prefers the Belgian, or white carrot, to any other, being much more 
productive. This is a general opinion. He keeps twice the quantity of stock 
which was kept on the farm when he began his improvements ; and lie sells an- 
nually sixty tons of hay. 1 refer, in this case, to the farmer who cultivates gorse 



334 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

having two crops of lambs to send to market, the first in De- 
cember, the second late in the spring. In this case, the ewe 
and the lamb are both well fed and nourished with much care, 
as indeed can well be afforded. He stated to me a fact which 
deserves notice. He has frequently crossed his Dorset ewes 
with a Hampshire buck ; and in this case, the female progeny 
loses the property of breeding twice a year. I leave the philoso- 
phy of this to the physiologists ; but the experience of this 
farmer established the fact. A sheep which will give two lambs 
a year for the market, and her own fleece, is a profitable animal. 
The lambs sent to market at Christmas, in a place like London, 
where persons are always to be found able and willing to pay 
an exorbitant price for luxuries, can always be sold to advantage. 

(2.) Cheviot and Highland Sheep. — The next breeds of 
sheep which are commonly seen in the Smithfield market, and 
are bred extensively in their proper districts, are the Highland and 
the Cheviot sheep, — the former at the north, and the latter at the 
south, of Scotland. Both of these kinds of sheep are of moderate 
size, and of good shape, weighing, when dressed, from twelve 
pounds to sixteen pounds, and upwards, per quarter. Their 
wool, especially that of the Highland sheep, is of very inferior 
quality, being worth less than half the price of common wool. 
The Cheviots are excellent mothers ; and both of these kinds 
of sheep show a remarkable thriftiness, when brought from the 
north to the rich pastures and turnip fields of the south. Their 
mutton, of the best quality, always commands a high price in 



extensively, for his stock, — of whom I have spoken. This gives him a great amount 
of food and manure. Besides this, he has the best arrangement for keeping his 
manure which I have seen in the country. A long shed, open at the sides half- 
way down, with a floor sunk about two feet in the ground, and the wliole walled 
in at the sides with a brick wall, rising about three feet above ground, with a 
tight bottom, inclined so that all the drainings of the heap run into a well in the 
corner, formed the receptacle for his manure. The manure was regularly brought 
into it from tlie stables and cow-houses. Thus his manure was effectually pro- 
tected from the sun and rain, and was accessible, cither for deposit or removal. 
A pump was placed in the well ; and as it became full, from the drainings of the 
heap, tiie liquid was pumped up, and by a movable trough spread over the heap. 
It is an important pomt to secure a manure heap from the drenching rain, as other- 
wise the liquid running from it becomes greatly diluted, and in such case appears 
to lose much of its efficacy. 



LIVE STOCK. 335 

the market, from the resemblance in its taste to venison, and is 
mucli sought after for epicurean tables. The Cheviots are 
white-faced sheep, and much valued. They are never housed, 
and are left to dig for their food in the bleak pastures, in the 
depth of winter. Their wool is coarser than that of the South 
Devon, and is not used in the manufacture of finer cloth. The 
West Highland sheep and the Cheviots are valuable races for 
their hardiness. The Highland sheep have black faces, and are 
horned. They are long and ill-shaped ; and the average weight 
of wool is about three pounds per fleece. They are deemed 
even hardier than the Cheviots ; but they come to maturity 
later, and the best of them are not killed until they are three 
years old. 

( 3. ) Leicester Sheep. — Of the long-wooled sheep, the Lei- 
cester take precedence of all others. This race of sheep owes 
much of its excellence to the sagacity and skill of the celebrated 
breeder, both of cattle and sheep, Mr. Bake well. It was his aim, 
by careful selection, to combine, if possible, fineness of bone, 
beauty and symmetry of form, tendency or disposition to fatten, 
Vv^ith weight of carcass, and a good yield of wool. In all these 
respects, it is surprising what he seems to have been able to ac- 
complish ; and for roundness and finish of form, flatness and 
width of back, shortness of neck, fulness of breast, width behind, 
and depth of fat upon the ribs, the best samples among them are 
most remarkable. 

The success of Bakewell in breeding his sheep, and raising 
them to a high degree of perfection, is perhaps in no way more 
strongly evinced than in the fact that " he let his first ram for 
the season, in 17G0, for seventeen shillings and sixpence, and in 
1789, he let one ram for one thousand guineas, and he cleared 
more than six thousand guineas, or more than thirty thousand 
dollars, the same year, by the letting of others." These fine 
sheep, either pure or intermixed, are found spread extensively 
over the kingdom, though they are not well adapted to a cold 
climate, to short feeding, or to travelling long distances. They 
cannot, I think, be pronounced a hardy sheep; but many of the 
long-wooled sheep, of various kinds, have been improved by 
being crossed with the Leicester. Their yield of wool is from 
six to seven pounds per fleece, and is valued especially for 



336 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

worsted yarns, and goes into serges and carpets. They are 
remarkable for their quiet habits, and seem to enjoy life in eat- 
ing and growing fat. They are not highly valued in Smithfield 
market, from their excessive fatness, giving a very small proportion 
of muscle or lean meat, and a large portion of the carcass being 
absolutely uneatable, except by the most gross and truly Es- 
quimaux appetites.* The Lincolnshire sheep are larger and 
coarser ; but in tendency to keep, and increase in fatness, the 
Leicesters are beyond all rivalry ; indeed, in respect to almost all 
the other long-wooled sheep, they have been so crossed and in- 
termixed with the Leicester, that it would be difficult to find a 
pure animal of any one of the original breeds. 

(4.) South DoiDii Sheep. — The South Downs are an admi- 
rable race of sheep. The picture in the front of the Sixth Re- 
port gives an imperfect idea of their extraordinary beauty ; and 
their value corresponds with their beauty. Their average yield 
of wool is about four to five pounds, of a short staple, and of a 
tolerably fine, and extremely useful quality. Though they have 
a great disposition to fatten easily, and come to a good weight, 
such as twenty pounds per quarter, and often exceeding that, yet 
their fat and lean are well mixed, and the proportion of one to 
the other in the same animal such as is desired. They have 
dark faces, short legs, and stand extremely well upon their legs : 
are broad in the chest, round in the barrel, most compactly and 



* That I may not be charged with prejudice, I shall quote here a letter re- 
ceived from an eminent Smithfield salesman, through whose hands, probably, more 
sheep pass, in the course of tiie year, tlian those of any other man. " It is neces- 
sary that I should qualify my observations by saying tliat no doubt Leicester 
sheep have been of immense service ; and some of the best of tiiem are now ex- 
ceedingly good, having the tendency to fatten more quickly than any others. 
But you will find my dislike of them is shared by almost all practical men. 
They certainly have degenerated exceedingly, becoming small and light of flesh, 
and unsalable from these causes — making but little meat per pound, and weigh- 
ing but very little. The average weight of those which come to our market is 
about eight and a half stone, (eight pounds to a stone,) or seventeen pounds per 
quarter. Tiie truth is, tliat some persons have paid such close attention to neat- 
ness, symmetry, and comeliness of form, that they have lost size, flesh, and worth. 
They have, however, their advantages, for sucli is tlieir aptitude to fatten, that it 
is only fair to admit that more can be grazed to an acre than of other sheep. 
The cross of a good Leicester ram with a large-framed Down, makes an excel- 
lent sheep." 



LIVE STOCK. 337 

strongly built ; with flat backs, and broad and square behind : 
quiet and good-tempered ; much more hardy than the Leicesters, 
though in this respect inferior to the Cheviot and the Highland 
sheep ; capable of being driven, without injury, two, three, or 
more miles a day, and used often for treading the new-sown 
wheat where the soil is thin ; and doing the most ample credit to 
any care or kindness bestowed upon them. Their wool is much 
inferior in fineness to that of the Saxony or Merino ; but for 
quality and amount of wool, for size and weight, for quality of 
flesh, and for general hardiness, it would be diflicult to find a 
superior race of animals. 

Jonas Webb, Esq. of Babraham, Cambridgeshire, — whose 
flocks and excellently-managed farm I have repeatedly seen, — 
having been kind enough to answer fully several inquiries which I 
proposed to him, I shall give my readers the benefit of his replies. 
No man is more competent to speak on the subject, for no man's 
flock in the kingdom has attained a higher eminence. 

He has been a keeper and breeder of South Down sheep for 
nearly a quarter of a century, and laid the foundation of his 
flock by a selection from some of the best flocks in the kingdom. 
Since he began his improvements, he has never made a cross 
with any other breed ; and no individual has ever carried off" 
more prizes at the various agricultural and cattle shows, where 
the premiums are always assigned by judges who are understood 
to be entirely disinterested, and without any knowledge of the 
parties to whom the animals belong. 

'•' I classed my sheep into three different tribes, according to 
the different breeders from whom I procured them, after I had 
made various experiments with the stock from each, varying, of 
course, according to the frame and constitution, weight and 
quality of mutton and wool, and the different character which I 
might require, always keeping in view never to breed from an 
unhealthy animal, however superior he might be in other 
respects. I have since been rearing a fourth and a fifth tribe, 
which I am only able to do by keeping a pedigree of each, and 
by which means I am able to mix one tribe with another, as cir- 
cumstances and convenience may require, believing, in most 
cases, Mike will produce like,' with proper care and watch- 
fulness. 

" I consider them to be much hardier than either the Leicester, 
VOL, n. 29 



338 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Lincoln, or any other white-faced breeds, the Welsh sheep and 
Cheviots excepted, with quality of mutton and wool superior to 
any of them. The weekly statement of prices in the London 
Smithfield market will bear me out in this assertion in regard to 
meat, and the regular wool market in respect to the wool ; al- 
though, I believe, wool of the first cross between the Leicester 
and the South Down, from the first clip, is worth, at the present 
time, fully as much as the pure South Down, for certain pur- 
poses. 1 believe the South Down has more muscle, that is, 
more lean meat, in proportion to their fat, than any other sheep. 

" Their aptness to fatten is very great, at an early age. It has, 
for many years past, become the custom, in the arable land dis- 
trict, to winter the wether lambs (viz., castrated lambs) upon 
turnips, rape, &c., with from half a pint to a pint of corn, (pulse 
or grain,) or oil cake made from linseed, per day, in the fold on 
the turnip lands, where they are kept as long as the turnips last, 
say until the middle of April, when they are clipped and sent to 
market. Many are sold before that time, so that they are dis- 
posed of to the butcher at from twelve to fifteen months old, 
weighing, upon an average, from eighteen to twenty pounds a 
quarter. I believe they are capable of walking farther for their 
food, and bringing it to fold, than any other sheep which can be 
kept in hurdles, keeping the same good condition. As a proof 
of this, you may see that my flock of ewes often walk from five 
to six miles per day, backwards and forwards, to feed npon very, 
very poor heath or sheep-walk, and have no artificial food. 

" The average yield of wool from breeding ewes is about four 
poiuids each, and from ewe and wether hogs,* from six to eight 
pounds each, according to their size and keep, and the time of 
clipping them. On referring to my sheep book, I find the 
average weight of wool for seven years past, upon sheep of dif- 
ferent ages, from one to seven years old, (rams,) varying in num- 
ber from one hundred and fifty to two hundred, each season, to 
be about eight pounds each. 

" I obtain usually one hundred and ten lambs to one hundred 
ewes, and often many more. The lambs come generally about 
the beginning of March. Many persons have them earlier, and 



* A sheep, after one shearins^, when a year or a year and a half old, is called 
a shear-hog, or dimnont, or shearling. 



LIVE STOCK. 339 

many later ; and, in a general way, the later they lamb the more 
they tioin. 

" The ewes are first put to the ram at about nineteen months 
old. I generally put eighty ewes to each ram ; sometimes more ; 
often less, if the ram is aged, or according to circumstances. 

" I feed my flock ewes upon stubbles from whence the crops 
of corn (grain) have been harvested, and upon old seed-layers, 
(lands laid down to grass,) about the time of putting the rams 
with them. They are generally together about eight or ten 
weeks, more or less, according to circumstances. The ewes are 
shifted about from the stubbles in which are the young clovers, 
&c., for the following summer, on to old heath, sheep-walk, 
or pasture, until within a short time of their lambing, if that 
description of food lasts out, when they are put upon turnips to 
be eaten ofi" upon the land on which they are grown, hurdled 
in for that purpose, and receive only a small quantity of them 
at first, with some hay chaff", or hay and straw chaff mixed in 
troughs. Some have straw chaff only ; or I remove the ewes 
into a straw yard to pick over the straw, to lodge there at night, 
and return to the turnip field the next morning. On very bad 
feeding land, the turnips are often drawn off the land and stored, 
and the sheep are fed with them upon pastures or in yards. 
About a fortnight or three weeks after the ewes have lambed, 
they have what turnips they require, with some hay chaff or 
straw, and are kept upon them as long as the turnips last, when 
they are fed with mangel-wurzel, rye sown for spring feed, &c., 
until the artificial grasses are ready for feeding, upon which the 
flock continue until the lambs are weaned. This takes place 
generally about the latter end of June, or the beginning of July, 
according to the age of the lambs. The lambs are then put 
upon after-grass from which hay has been cut, artificial grasses, 
&c., until the turnips or rape are ready to be eaten off, when 
they are put upon it, and are (speaking of my own) never taken 
off the land upon which that food is growing, until it is all con- 
sumed, the following spring, however bad the weather. The 
ewe lambs intended for stock have some chaff in troughs besides 
the turnips, which are not cut, but eaten off the ground. The 
wether and ram lambs have the same treatment, with the addi- 
tion of a little corn (grain) or oil cake, or a mixture of them, 
according to the price, and have their turnips cut for them in 



340 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

troughs. The corn or oil cake is given in small quantities at 
first, and increased until each receives one pint per day, which 
is sufficient to fatten them by the time before specified. 

" The ewes are often kept until they are nine or ten years 
old, but not in the regular flock, as they are mostly broken- 
mouthed and require nursing, especially where they have been 
kept much upon turnips. The usual time of keeping them, if in 
a flock, is until they are six or seven years of age. 

'' T think the first cross with a South Down and a Leicester 
one of the best I have ever seen, both for mutton and wool, and 
general usefulness ; and as a breeder of South Downs, I recom- 
mend to use the South Down ram to the white-faced ewe, as the 
produce, when fat, is worth more per pound than a cross made 
the other way, viz., with the white-faced ram and the South 
Down ewe ; but possibly a breeder of Leicester rams would say 
diff'erently. I believe my assertion will be borne out, that eight 
lambs out of ten will take most after the male, if a South Down, 
in color, and a greater number than after the Leicester ram ; and 
the price in Smithfield will determine which description is worth 
the most per pound, a white or brown-faced sheep. I have 
stated that the produce, when fat, are worth more per pound, as I 
consider that all sheep so bred, viz., as crosses, are worth more to 
fat than for any other purpose, and are certainly excellent sheep. 
Some crosses have been carried farther to great advantage, with- 
out doubt, but it is the exception not the rule. Little doubt 
exists in my mind, that the breeders of Leicester and other 
white-faced sheep can and do use a South Down for one cross 
only, and then breed on from that cross, not by putting the 
crosses together, but by putting a white-faced ram to the half- 
bred ewe, aud so keep on, from her produce, with the Leicester 
or white-faced sheep for several generations, by which means 
they obtain more muscle, more constitution, quite as much or 
more wool, (if the selection is properly made in choosing the 
South Down ram.) and I believe the brown color of the male 
would be quite subdued by the second cross, or the third at 
most ; on the other hand, I believe it has been proved that the 
stain of the white-faced sheep in a South Down flock, where the 
experiment has been tried, has never been extinguislied. Some 
will come a little difl"erent from others in the same lot. Perhaps 
some individuals may differ from me in opinion. You asked 
for mine. 



LIVE STOCK. . 341 

" In making these remarks respecting the South Down sheep, 
I wish it to be fully understood that it is far from my wish to 
disparage any other breed of sheep. There may be others 
equally good for certain districts and localities ; possibly better. 
My object has been to point out the general usefulness of the 
one, without calling in question the good qualities of any other." 

I hardly know what requires to be added to an account of this 
excellent breed of sheep, so full and explicit as that which has 
now been laid before my readers, and every word of which rests 
upon careful and successful experience. Some of the principal 
breeders of sheep in England have annually a letting of tups or 
rams, in which their best rams are exhibited, and they are then 
let, in open auction, to such farmers as choose to hire them for 
the season, for the improvement of their flocks. I have attended 
two such meetings, where I found a numerous party of farmers, 
breeders, and amateurs, assembled, — some coming from a long 
distance, — the competition spirited, and the hospitalities of the 
farmer or proprietor, at whose place we met, most liberal. 

The first of the two meetings I attended, was at Ingestrie. 
Staffordshire, the seat of Earl Talbot. The bucks to be let, on 
this occasion, were superior animals of the Leicester or Bakewell 
breed, amounting to twenty-four. There were of these twelve 
shearlings, or animals from whom only one fleece had been 
taken, and the amounts of these shearings were given as fol- 
lows : — 73 lbs. ; lO.J lbs. ; 8 lbs. ; 8| lbs. ; 7^ lbs. ; 9.? lbs. ; 8 lbs. ; 
9 lbs. ; 10 lbs. ; 8^ lbs. ; 11 lbs. ; 9 lbs. These sheep were all of 
a high character. In this case the bidding was private, the oflfer 
being privately communicated to the agent for the sale, who first 
announced to the bidder the price at which the individual sheep 
was held, and then took the highest advance upon that price, the 
buck too, upon which he bid, being known likewise only to the 
agent. This method gratified the secretiveness of those who 
v/ished to conceal their bargains, and at the same time induced 
the hirers to name at once their highest offer. The company, 
which was numerous, afterwards dined together in the palace 
hall. His lordship himself presided at the dinner. 

At Mr. Webb's, at Babraham, Cambridgeshire, the bucks to 

be let amounted to 177, w^hich were all numbered and tied upon 

the ground, for the examination of the company. The number 

of each sheep was given upon a list exhibited, with his age, the 

29* 



342 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



amount of wool yielded by him, and the price at which his let- 
ting was fixed. At an appointed hour, each sheep was brought 
into the ring, the lowest price named, and the competition began 
by an advance upon the price stated. If not taken, his letting 
was afterwards the subject of private negotiation. In some 
cases, there was a large advance. After the letting, the company, 
consisting of more than two hundred noblemen, gentlemen, and 
farmers, sat down to a bountiful entertainment, provided by the 
host, in a marquee erected for that purpose. Mr. Webb stipulated 
to convey the animal sold, at his own expense, half the distance, 
if it did not exceed one hundred miles, and to take all the ordi- 
nary risks. I subjoin the list of 1846, including number, prices, 
and weight of wool, thinking it may be curious to my readers. 

Number of Bucks, Weight of Wool, and Prices of Letting for tlic Season, at the Tup 
Shoiv of Jonas Wehh, Esq., Babraham, Cambridgeshire, July, 1846. 



No 


Pr 


CES OF 


Letting. 


Weight 


No. 




Prices of 


Lettimg. 


Weight 








OF Wool. 






OF Wool. 




Seven Years old. 


lbs. 


01. 


33 .... 42 


. . 


lbs. o:. 

. 9 


2 . . 


£36 


15 s. . 


. 8 


4 


35 .... 10 


10 . . 


. 7 12 




Six Years old. 






Three Years old. 




5 . . 


.£5 


5s. . 


. 7 





38 .... £8 


8 s.. . 


, 8 12 


6 . . 


. 8 


8 . 


. 8 





39 . 






7 


7 . . 


9 


8 . . . 


. 10 


10 . 


. 8 





40 . 






5 


5 . . 


7 8 




Five Years old. 






41 . 

42 . 






10 
5 


10 . . 
5 . . 


7 4 
7 12 


9 . . 


.£17 


17 s., 


. 8 





43 . 






7 


7 . . 


8 


10 . . 


. 8 


8 . 


. . 8 


4 


45 . 






15 


15 . . 


9 12 


11 . . 


. 12 


12 . 


. 9 





46 . 






6 


6 . . 


8 




Four Years old. 






47 . 

48 . 






7 
10 


7 . . 
10 . . 


8 

8 8 


14 . . 


.£42 


Os. . 


. . 8 


8 


51 . 






15 


15 . . 


9 


18 . . 




6 


6 . 


. 8 





53 . 






15 


15 . . 


8 8 


19 . . 







. 


. 9 





55 . . 






14 


14 . . 


8 4 


20 . . 




. 10 


10 . 


. . 7 


12 


56 . 






21 


. . 


7 4 


21 . . 




7 


7 . 


. 8 


8 


57 . 






17 


17 . . 


9 8 


22 . . 




18 


18 . 


. 7 


8 


58 . 






18 


18 . . 


7 4 


24 . . 




8 


8 . 


. 7 


8 


59 . 






18 


18 . . . 


8 8 


25 . . 




8 


8 . 


. 7 


8 


60 . 






16 


16 . . . 


9 8 


26 . . 




. 6 


6 . 


. 9 





61 . 






21 


. 


9 


28 . . 
30 . . 




10 

7 


10 . 

7 


. 8 
. 6 


4 
12 


Two Years old. 




31 . . 




52 


10 . 


. 9 


8 


62 .... £7 


7s.. . . 


6 4 


32 . . 




26 


5 . 


. 7 


12 


63 . . 




. 


15 


15 . . 


8 4 



No. 









LIVE 


3T0CK. 








343 


["bices of Letting. Weight 


No. Prices op Letting. Weight 


OF Wool. 




of Wool 


lbs. 01. 




lbs. 01, 


.£10 10s. ... 7 8 


124 . . 


£21 Os. . . . 7 


. 6 6 






. 6 8 


125 . . 


8 8 






7 12 


. 11 11 






9 8 


127 . . 


11 11 






7 8 


. 18 18 






8 12 


129 . . 


6 6 






7 8 


. 10 10 






8 


131 . . 


. 11 11 






8 


. 15 15 






8 4 


132 . . 


. 8 8 






8 


. 15 15 






. 7 8 


133 . . 


. 8 8 






8 


. 24 3 






10 8 


134 . . 


11 11 






8 


. 8 8 






. 9 


135 . . 


7 7 






6 


. 18 18 






. 7 


138 . . 


. 10 10 






. 8 4 


. 10 10 






8 


139 . . 


. 12 12 






. 8 


. 10 10 






. 7 8 


140 . . 


. 14 14 






. 7 


. 8 8 






8 


141 . . 


9 9 






. 5 12 


. 6 6 






7 


142 . . 


15 15 






. 7 8 


. 6 6 






8 


143 . . 


10 10 






. 7 8 


. 8 8 






. 8 


144 . . 


. 10 10 






8 


. 16 16 






7 


145 . . 


9 9 






. 7 


. 18 18 






. 8 4 


146 . . 


16 16 






8 


. 21 






. 7 


147 . . 


26 5 






7 12 


. 12 12 






8 


148 . . 


18 18 






8 


. 52 10 






9 8 


149 . . 


15 15 






. 7 


. 31 10 






9 8 


150 . . 


21 






. 7 


. 52 10 






8 8 


151 . . 


31 10 






8 8 


. 26 5 






7 8 


152 . . 


26 5 






8 4 


. 31 10 






9 


153 . . 


31 10 






. 7 4 


. 26 5 






9 


154 . . 


26 5 






9 


. 26 5 






8 4 


155 ... 


23 2 






. 7 12 


. 42 






8 4 


157 . . 


15 15 






7 4 


. 21 






8 


158 ... 


14 14 






. 8 8 


Yearlings. 


159 . . 
161 . . 


16 16 







8 4 

8 8 


.£10 10s. ... 7 12 


162 . . 









8 


. 5 5 






6 8 


KK3 . . 


42 






7 12 


. 6 6 






7 4 


166 . . 


47 5 






8 4 


. 7 7 






6 12 


169 . . 


42 






9 


. 9 






6 12 


170 . . 


36 15 






8 


. 13 13 






7 8 


172 . . 


26 5 






. 7 4 


. 12 12 






8 


173 . . 


26 T, 






8 8 


. 7 7 






7 8 


174 . . 


31 10 






7 


. 18 18 






8 12 


175 . . 


26 5 






9 


. 8 8 






8 


176 . . 


42 






7 8 


. 5 5 






6 


177 .. . 


31 10 






9 


. 10 10 . 






7 12 













The character of Mr. Webb's flock is above all praise ; and I 
could wish to see this breed of sheep extensively spread in the 
United States. Of the character and demand for the wool, the 



344 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

manufacturers are the proper judges. As mutton, they are pre- 
eminent, — combining with extraordinary fatness a fair proportion 
of lean meat, — and in taste, deemed equal to the Highland sheep. 
We, I think, as a people, have yet to acquire a taste for mutton. 
In this respect, we diifer altogether from the English, with whom, 
in spite of all we hear about "the roast beef of old England," 
mutton seems every where the preferred dish. The immense 
quantities of poultry, likewise, which are brought to our markets, 
will stand in the way of other meats ; yet our markets, espe- 
cially in our large cities, are likely to furnish a steady and increas- 
ing demand for mutton ; and wherever they can be reached, I 
believe that no breed of sheep are so likely to meet and con- 
stantly stimulate that demand, as the beautiful mutton of the 
South Down sheep. 

(5.) General Management of Sheep. — I must remind my 
friends in the United States, that excellence in any department 
of husbandry has not been reached here, and can no where be 
sustained, without persevering eflbrts, and an extreme watchful- 
ness and care. Sheep here are never left to take care of them- 
selves, but have always a shepherd with them, — commonly a boy 
or an old man, — by day, and are carefully folded at night. The 
fatting sheep, while the artificial feed remains, are fed in folds.* 
The general impression with us, I know, is, that they are turned 
into a field of unpulled turnips, and left to gnaw them into the 
ground ; but this method, unless the turnips are very small, is not 
much practised or approved. The turnips are generally drawn 
for them, cut up by a machine, and placed in troughs. This is 
especially important in respect to Swedes. An experienced far- 
mer in Nottinghamshire informed me that he was averse to 



* " It is tlie custom for almost every grazier to have sheep follow on the grasses 
after tlic beasts. It is true, our system of feeding the majority of sheep is much 
altered. The increased population demands it should be. It was formerly the 
practice to let the sheep graze, and have the lean nourished by degrees, until 
they were two years old ; but now the plan is, to feed sheep as highly as tliey 
will bear, to make them fat as lambs, keep them so, and bring them to heavy 
weiglits at one year old. The sheep fed in this way leave a great profit : but the 
principal inducement to adopt \his plan is for the advantage which the land de- 
rives. You are aware that nothing will produce such a crop of grain as a turnip 
field eaten off by sheep folded upon it, especially with the addition of oil cake 
and grain." — Extract from private Letter. 



LIVE STOCK. 



345 



giving Swedes to ewes in milk, when their lambs were young, 
as he found that it made the milk of the ewes too rich for the 
digestion of the lambs. He therefore aimed to have some white 
turnips in reserve for the ewes at lambing time. I put this down 
as the result of his observation, without any other confirmation 
of the fact. 

Experiments were reported to me, on a farm which 1 visited, 
from which it would appear that feeding sheep for fatting in a 
dry shed, upon a raised floor, and where they were protected 
from the weather, was attended, on a strict comparison with 
those fed in an open field, with a great saving of food, and a 
large increase of weight. Other experiments of a similar kind 
have not resulted so satisfactorily, as fully to establisli this point. 
The subject deserves further trials. In all attempts to fatten 
animals, a principal object should be to make them comfortable. 
Sheep will bear, without apparent suffering, almost any degree 
of cold; but they often sufier from wet, and especially from a 
wet lodging. Where a shed open at one side, to W'hich they 
may resort at their pleasure, is connected with a dry fold yard, 
the best arrangement seems to be attained. Difference in climate 
is to be considered. In England, the winter is temperate, and 
generally wet; in the United States, it is dry and cold. In 
some experiments reported, it would appear that sheep do better 
when the turnips are given to them unwashed, than when given 
in a perfectly clean state. I have seen some human lambs, un- 
washed and uncombed, the very examples of vigorous growth, 
of muscular energy, and of ruddy health if you could get at the 
true color of their cheeks. I have not been accustomed, how- 
ever, to attribute their remarkable healthiness to the dirt in 
which they lived. The above statement, in respect to sheep, 
may possibly be true, or it may be a mere excuse to one's con- 
science, for not an uncommon reluctance to pains-taking and 
labor. 

Of one point I hope my American readers will not lose sight ; 
and that is, that the extraordinary fatness and thrift of the Eng- 
lish sheep is not acquired without an abundance of succulent 
food, and with this their fattening goes pn as well in winter as 
in summer.* 

* I have referred several times to the use of oil cake, in flittening both sheep 
and neat-stock. Perhaps I shall have no better opportunity of saying, that a 



346 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 



4, Swine. — I have seen no individual hogs, and no breed ol 
swine, in any respect superior to those which abound with us. 
They are not kept to a great extent, or in large herds, and most 
of them are killed very young. There is no pork, excepting tliat 
for navy and shipping purposes, salted and packed down, as with 
us, in tubs ; but with the exception of the lean meat, which is 
eaten fresh, or made into sausages, the hams are baconed and 
slightly smoked, and the sides or flitches, which alone are called 
bacon, are cured very much as the hams are, and then hung about 
the wall in the farmer's kitchen, very consolatory under the ap- 
prehension of scarcity, but to my taste nowise ornamental.* 

The best hogs which I have seen are the Essex White, — raised 
by a distinguished breeder, Mr. F. W. Hobbes, — the Berkshire, 
and the Neapolitan. These are often crossed, and variously in- 
termixed. The hogs of a most successful farmer in Cornwall, 
to whom I have before referred, were a mixture of the Essex, 



valued friend of mine, Thomas Spencer, Esq., of Bransby, Lincolnshire, most 
kindly remembered by many friends in the United States, has applied, with suc- 
cess, a new article to the fattening of his cattle. He obtains from the grease- 
receivers and soap-boilers, in London, large quantities of their refuse, with us 
called scraps, here provincially called brassin, which in the process of manufac- 
ture is pressed into cakes, and sent to him in that form. He uses tJiis steamed 
or heated, and mixed with turnips, chopped hay, and meal, to give to his fatten- 
ing cattle, and finds great advantages from it. It requires some little time to 
induce them to eat it. Some of the best feeders of swine whom I have known 
have always deemed it necessary to give them, with their farinaceous, a portion 
of animal food. The hog, however, is a universal and indiscriminate gourmand. 
Cattle being wholly graminivorous, might be supposed to be averse to animal 
food; but the appetite can be trained ; and we may find a solution of the case in 
the great doctrine, that " all flesh is grass." 

* The pork which is principally sold in the London markets is very small. A 
good deal of it comes from Ireland, from the pigs of the poor cotters, who de- 
pend upon the pet pig to pay the " rint." A principal dealer informed me, that 
formerly his customers would be glad of a side of pork which would weigh two 
hundred weight ; now they are averse to it, if it exceeds fifty pounds. This pork 
is very slightly salted. The hams and flitches are not always smoked, but sim- 
ply cured and dried, and in that way generally preferred. The American hams 
are deemed too large for the market, and are objected to as not cut with sufficient 
neatness. 

The objection to the lard from the United States is, that it is too soft. Whether 
this be owing to the feed upon which the swine are fitted, or the mode of pre- 
paring t.'ic lard, it would be worth while to inquire. The Irish are said to give 
hardness to their lard, of which great quantities are imported, by the intermixture 
of a portion of mutton tallow. From Ireland it usually comes in bladders of five 
to eight pounds' weight, a form much preferred to kegs. 



DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 347 

the Neapolitan, and a boar which he had imported from the 
United States. They Avere customarily killed at one year old, 
weighing from fifteen to seventeen score pounds. Some which 
I saw at two years old, he calculated would weigh thirty-five 
score. He has killed some which weighed thirty-six score. 
These are very extraordinary weights. His hogs go in the pas- 
ture from April until October, and have no other feed. In the 
autumn they are put up, and fatted with steamed potatoes, mixed 
while warm with barley meal. Twelve gallons of barley meal 
he deems sufficient for fattening a hog fed in this way. They 
are watched by a hind, who supplies them as often as their 
troughs are empty, and as he can induce them to eat. His 
practice corresponds with that of a successful farmer in Ver- 
mont, which I shall detail to my readers. His hogs were kept 
in his pastures from spring until autumn, during the grass season, 
without other food than, at night, the slops or refuse of the dairy. 
In the autumn they were brought into warm styes, and were 
continued to be fed upon hay, chopped and steamed for them, 
with a very small quantity of corn meal mixed with it. In this 
way he made excellent hogs, and at a cheap rate. One acre of 
land was sufficient to support six hogs. He occasionally changed 
their pasture. He deemed hogs kept in this way a more profit- 
able stock than sheep, — a discovery which, I think, will surprise 
many feeders of swine. 



CIX. — DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 

England has long been celebrated for its dairy products, at 
least for the quality of its cheese ; and this is often of a superior 
description. 

1. Butter. — The butter in England is, much of it, delicious, 
especially that which is made in private families, where it is 
churned from new and sweet cream every morning, and brought 
fresh from the churn to the breakfast table ; and more particu- 
larly when the butter is made from the cream, of an Alderney 



348 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

COW. The common market and shop batter, however, is of the 
same various character with that in our own markets, with no 
larger proportion of very excellent butter than is to be found in 
the markets of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Indeed, 
much of the butter found in the market of the last-named city, 
for its freshness and deliciousness, is no where surpassed. The but- 
ter in England is generally sent to market fresh, and you are left 
to salt it at your pleasure, as you use it. The salted butter, in 
tubs or firkins, is mostly imported from Ireland, or the Continent. 
Even this, however, is not heavily salted. In most of the mar- 
kets, a good deal of butter made from the whey of cheese is sold 
at a reduced price. It is of inferior taste and quality, and is 
bought by the poor, or to be used in cooking, where, like a good 
many nameless things, it may be thoroughly disguised, and pass 
without detection. 

The Dorsetshire butter, which stands at the head of the mar- 
ket, comes packed in neat casks of about thirty pounds each ; 
but is very lightly salted, and of course will not keep long. 
It is likewise sent up to London in lumps, perfectly fresh for the 
table. Its quality is excellent. The table butter likewise, from 
Epping, and especially Aylesbury, is of the best description. 

The Devonshire butter is almost universally made by first 
heating the milk, just so much as to cause the escape of the 
fixed air. In twelve hours the cream is all brought to the surface, 
and in a state of consistency to be easily taken off. It is a dis- 
puted point, whether as much butter is obtained in this way as 
by the ordinary mode of letting it stand, without being heated, a 
much longer time. The butter is thought to acquire in this way 
a peculiar taste, but it is by no means unpleasant. The skimmed 
milk remaining is ])erfectly sweet, and appears the richer for 
being heated. In this way is obtained the famous clotted cream 
which is to be found on the hospitable tables of Devonshire, and 
is a great luxury. 

Glass milk-pans, made of bottle-glass, are much approved, and, 
with ])roper care, are in no danger of being broken. They re- 
commend themselves by their cleanliness and incapacity of rust, 
or corrosion, or decomposition. In some dairies I found shallow 
leaden troughs used for setting the milk, with a tap at the bot- 
tom, so as to draw the milk off and leave the cream. Some 
persons maintain that, the more shallow the pan, the more cream 



DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 349 

in proportion will be obtained ; but in a large dairy in Scotland, 
the milk is always set in deep casks and tubs. Such is the diver- 
sity of opinion every where prevalent. The Scotch had no fears 
that the cream would not find its way to the surface unless the 
principle of gravitation were to be reversed. One of the best 
dairy women in the country never suffers any water to be 
applied to the butter when taken out of the churn, a practice not 
uncommon. 

2. Cheese. — English cheese has long been celebrated for its 
excellence, but it is far from being all equally good. The Stil- 
ton cheese stands, by general admission, at the head : the 
Cheshire, the Cheddar, the Gloucestershire, and the Wiltshire, 
have their different partisans, and though they differ from each 
other, are preferred according to the particular tastes of those 
who eat them. The celebrated Dunlop cheese of Scotland, 
which is certainly excellent, is made with one fourth part of 
ewe's milk. 

It cannot be expected that I should go into all the processes 
of the dairy. My remarks must be general. All dairymen seem 
to agree, that, in cheese-making, much depends on the character 
of the soil upon which the cows are fed. Wet and low grounds, 
producing a rank and coarse herbage, are unfavorable, and so are 
the artificial grasses given to the cows green. An old pasture 
and a dry soil are most desired ; and it is said, that the poorer 
the pasture, the better the cheese. Wet and cold pastures have 
been converted into good cheese grounds, by thorough draining 
and cleaning. The quality of the cheese depends, more than 
upon any thing else, upon the skilful and careful management 
of the dairy-maid herself. This is to be learned by practice, and 
very little useful direction can be conveyed in words. The 
making of cheese is a chemical operation. We shall be glad 
when chemistry is so applied as to determine the rules by 
which success may be made certain. 

The average quantity of cheese made is reckoned at one hun- 
dred and twelve pounds to one hundred gallons of new milk. 
Few cheeses are made wholly of new milk, being, in general, 
what are called two meal cheese, and the cream being taken off 
the previous night's milk, to be converted into butter. In this 
ease, according to the practice of pai excellent Vermont farmer 
VOL. II. 30 



350 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

within my knowledge, the buttermilk would go back to the 
cheese and serve to enrich it. The cheeses, in general, are made 
very hard, which is owing, in the first place, to cutting the curd 
very fine, and next, to the severe pressure which is given to 
them. The rennets are here called veils ; and the best are im- 
ported from Ireland, At one of the principal dairies which I 
visited, it was customary to put six skins, at the beginning of the 
season, into two gallons of brine, and use this liquid for forming 
the curd, in such quantities, and at such time, as required. A 
quantity of lemon was also put into the liquid, to correct the 
taste and give it a flavor ; but I believe with no advantage to 
the cheese. It is strongly urged not to use the rennets until 
they are a full year old, as otherwise they cause the cheese to 
heave and to be full of holes. In most dairies, it is customary to 
scald the curd with hot whey, but by the best dairy-women this 
is disapproved, as tending to impoverish the cheese. The color- 
ing the cheese with anatto is not universally practised, nor does 
it much benefit the sale, where the character of the dairy is 
known.* 

I received from two sources, where the cheese was of the first 
quality, two recipes for making Stilton cheese, and one for mak- 
ing Cheshire, which I shall subjoin. 

(1.) Stilton Cheese. — "To fill one of the Stilton moulds, 
take nine gallons of new milk, and one gallon of cream. Take 



* Several questions have been proposed, by a respected correspondent, on 
cheese-making. I shall answer to the best of my information. 

The skins for rennet are to be procured a year before they are wanted ; to be 
cleaned of all impurity ; to be turned inside out and salted; to be then packed 
down one upon the other in salt, with a layer of salt between each ; and then cov- 
ered with salt and shut up. As they are wanted, a month before being used, they 
are to be taken out ; tlie brine drained from them ; spread and powdered with fine 
salt ; rolled out, and distended upon sticks ; and hung up to dry. 

The temperature of the milk, when the rennet is applied, should be from 80° to 
84° Fahr. The dairy-women in some parts of the country, who make very good 
cheese, make their cheeses cold, tliat is, coagulate at a very low temperature. 
This cheese is said always to meet a quick demand. Tliey likewise salt them 
but lightly. 

The curd is broken by a machine, being formed of projecting teeth set upon a 
cylinder ; and the curd, being placed in a kind of hopper, passes through them 
and is ground fine. 

An hour, or an hour and a half, is thought the proper time for the process of 



DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 



351 



one quart of marigold flowers, and pound them very fine in a 
mortar, and then stir them into two quarts of boiling water, and 
let them stand five minutes. Then strain off the liquid into the 
cream, and pour it into the milk. Put in the rennet. When it 
has come into curd, take a cheese-cloth and put it into a sieve, 
and raise the curd with the hand into the sieve, and let it drip 
until it is firm enough to be put into the mould. When first 
put into the mould, press it with small weights for two hours ; 
then apply a dry cloth to it, and put it under the press ; and salt 
it every twelve hours for three times. When taken from under 
the press, put a bandage of calico around it for several weeks, 
until it gets quite firm." 

(2.) Improved Stilton Cheese. — The subjoined is an account 
of cheese made by a superior dairy-woman in Lincolnshire, in imi- 
tation of Stilton, which the writer, a most competent judge, pro- 
nounces superior to any Stilton cheese which he ever tasted : — 

" The utensils are the same as those used in the manufacture 
of the real Stilton, excepting the cheese-vat, which in this case 
IS a plate-tin cylinder, without top or bottom, having the sides 
pierced with holes, to let the whey escape. The rennet is made 

coagulation of the milk. If the coagulation is rapid, there will be less curd, and 
it will be tougher; if slow, more in quantity, and more tender in quality. 

Another machine is used in some dairies, which is called a curd-breaker, being 
a kind of sieve made of wire with a strong tin rim, as represent- 
ed in the margin. This cuts the curd by being carefully and 
gently pressed down upon it into the tub. After this, the curd 
is left for the separation of the whey from it, which is dipped 
out with a dish, or otherwise removed by the raising of the 
curd by the gentle lifting of the hand. A board full of holes is 
made to fit the top of the cheese-tub, and placed upon the curd 
with a moderate weight upon it, which is afterwards increased, and the tub turned 
on one side, for the draining of the whey from it. The weight must not be too 
severe, or the curd will be robbed of its richness. 

To determine when the curd is fit for breaking, is matter of judgment or ex- 
perience. Examination will decide when the coagulation is complete ; — the whey 
becomes of a pale green. 

The quantity of salt recommended is one pound to forty-two pounds of curd. 

Tlie lever press for the curd, and for the full-formed cheese, is preferred to the 
screw press, from its tendency to adjust itself. 

A full and detailed account of making Cheshire cheese is given in a Prize 
Essay by Henry White, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi. 
part 1, whicii I wish some of our excellent agricultural papers would republish. 




352 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



in the same way as usual, only, instead of the stomach of the 
calf, that of the lamb is used, and, in addition to the usual quan- 
tity of salt, a lemon stuck full of cloves adds to the efficacy of 
the rennet, and gives it a flavor. 

" As much as is needed of the morning's milk, as it comes 
from the cow, and the cream of a fourth part of as much milk 
of the evening before, are taken to make a cheese. The rennet 
is put to it in the usual way ; and when the milk has become 
curdled, it is not broken, as here and elsewhere, with a cheese- 
knife and disk ; but the surface of the curd is merely pressed 
down with a dish, — not broken ; and as the whey arises, it is 
taken off; and this operation is continued until no more appears. 
The mass by this time is not one fifth of its original size. A 
long, thin, clean, and dry cheese-cloth is then provided, and the 
curd is tumbled out of the vessel upon it ; and the four corners of 
the cloth are gathered together, and tied together, and hung up over 
the vessel ; and the remaining whey is pressed out of it by its own 
weight. It remains in the cloth for some time, until it gives over 
weeping, when it is taken out of the cloth, and cut into thin, long, 
narrow slices, about the size of sticks of sealing-wax. As these 
are cut, they are placed inside the tin cylinder, which is now 
placed on one of its ends, on another clean and dry cloth on the 
table. First, a layer of these slices is placed, filling up the 
whole of the bottom end ; and on the top of this, another layer 
of slices is placed at right angles to the last ; and a succession of 
others is thus continued, pressing them gently down, till the 
cylinder is quite full. When this is done, the cloth is gathered 
round the outside of the cylinder ; another person takes hold of 
the cylinder, with one hand lifting it up, while, with the other, 
the curd is pressed out into the cloth, which, with the curd in it, 
is then returned to the cylinder, and pressed down as closely as 
possible with the hand. Next morning, the whole is taken out 
of the cylinder, and put into a clean, dry cloth, upside down, and 
again placed in the cylinder. This is repeated twice a day, 
always reversing the young cheese in the cylinder. When it 
becomes so firm as to do without the cloth around it, a wrapper 
of thin dry cloth is put round it every morning, when it is placed 
in the cylinder, till it be so dry as to do without the cylinder, 
when the wrapper onlij is used, and it is left on a shell'. 

'•' There is a great deal of trouble with this kind of cheese, 



DAIUY HUSBANBRY. 353 

from the constant dampness of the skin ; — the sides are apt to 
get fly-blown, when maggots are the result, and the cheese is 
injured. The object of cutting the curd into thin slices, and 
placing them in alternate layers, is, that it may more readily get 
mouldy, and acquire the peculiar character of good Stilton — 
brittleness with softness, richness, and mouldiness. In Rutland 
and Leicestershire, where the Stjlton cheeses are made, the 
plan adopted is the same as that of the Dorset farmers in 
making their poor green Dorset cheese, that is, by inoculating 
the curd with some old, mouldy cheese. The cheese is of poor 
character, made up of half-creamed milk.* 

"The cheese is salted by rubbing salt in the sides of the 
cheese, when it has its swaddling bands removed, every day. 
This cheese takes at least eighteen months before it is fit for the 
table. The details I have given are those descriptive of the 
manufacture of the best Stilton," f 

I shall give next the directions, in her own words, of an ex- 
cellent dairy-woman, whose produce proves her skill for making 

(3.) Cheshire Cheese. — " Take thirty gallons of new milk to 
make a good-sized cheese, and then put the rennet into the milk. 
When come into curd, break it up very small ; then bring it 
together into one side of the tub ; then dip the whey from it. 
and put it into the cheese, with a cloth inside of the vat, and 



* In my inquiries, in Gloucestershire, of an eminent dairy-woman, what method 
they adopted to prevent the cheese from heaving or bursting, she, with a little 
genile stammering, and rather a threatening scowl from her husband, informed me 
that " they sometimes put in a little white lead.'''' But " they did not put in much, 
and they did not knoiv that it did any Jmrni." Of course, as it went to London 
market, they could not know whether it did harm or good. It might have been 
well to have inquired of the doctors or the undertakers. Arsenic would have 
been more certain in stilling all complaints of tlie quality of the cheese. 

In Cheshire, it was much more common tlian it now is, to put a liandful of pins 
in the centre of the cheese, to create a mouldiness, and give an appearance of 
age. What would be tiie effect of the decomposition of the metal in such cases r 
The chemists might tell us. 

With such ingenious medicaments applied to our food, we have great reason 
to say, in respect to our bodies, with good Dr, Watts, — 

" Strange, that a liarp of thousand strings 
Should keep in tune so long ! " 

f Private letter of John Morton, Esq. to H. C. 

30* 



354 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

put it under the press one hour ; then take it out and break it 
up very small, and warm a small quantity of whey and pour over 
the curd, and stir it around ; then take the whey from it, and 
put the curd into the vat again, and squeeze it well with the 
hand. When putting it in the vat the last way, take a small 
quantity of salt, and put into the middle of the cheese, and put 
it under the press. Apply dry cloths to it several times, and salt 
it every twelve hours for four times. A little flour is a very 
good thing to put in the middle of the cheese with the salt — 
about one table-spoonful." 

What the use of the flour is in this case, it would be diflicult 
to say. It may be like the horse-shoe upon the door-post. But 
I choose to give her directions verbatim and in full. Her cheese 
is of the best quality, and her dairy-room a model of neatness 
and order. 

A great deal of American cheese has already come, and a great 
deal more is likely to come, into the English market. Much 
that has been sent has been highly approved ; and the cheese- 
mongers say, there has been an evident improvement in the 
quality since the first importations ; but much of it is disliked, 
and none of it has yet reached the highest price in the English 
market. This, I believe, is partly owing to prejudice ; for it is 
very difficult to convince an Englishman that any thing out of 
his own country, or the product of a foreign country, is as good 
as that which he finds in it, — a prejudice not exclusively English. 
But it has some foundation ; — the American cheese has too com- 
monly a smartness or acridness, which is disagreeable, and is not 
found in the best English cheeses ; and, in the next place, the 
cheese-mongers state that the cheese is often heated on its passage, 
and in that way essentially injured. For the latter evil there 
would be a partial remedy in packing the cheese in separate boxes, 
which is now often done, and in not sending them in too green 
a state. The former evil is in the making of the cheese, and in 
applying too much rennet. I give this as the opinion of a very 
competent judge. He himself has so well succeeded in the 
manufacture of cheese, always deemed of the very best quality, 
that I shall put down, for the benefit of my readers, the sugges- 
tions which I have received from him in conversation. The 
subject, in the present open and friendly relations between the 



DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 355 

two countries, is certainly one of great importance to the Amer- 
ican dairymen. 

He advises, in the first place, that the calf from which the 
rennet is to be taken should not be allowed to suck on the day 
on which it is killed. The office of the rennet, or stomach of 
the calf, is, to supply the gastric juice by which the curdling of 
the milk is effected. If it has recently performed that office, it 
will have become to a degree exhausted of its strength. Too 
much rennet should not be applied. Dairymaids, in general, are 
anxious to have the curd "come soon," and so apply an exces- 
sive quantity, to which he thinks much of the acrid taste of the 
cheese is owing. Only so much should be used as will produce 
the effect in about fifty minutes. For the reason above given, 
the rennet should not, he says, be washed in water when taken 
from the calf, as it exhausts its strength, but simply salted or 
dried in the usual way, or otherwise preserved in pickle. 

When any cream is taken from the milk to be made into 
butter, the buttermilk should be returned to the milk of which 
the cheese is to be made. The greatest care should be taken in 
separating the whey from the cheese. When the pressure or 
handling is too severe, the whey that runs from the curd will 
appear of a white color. This is owing to its carrying off with 
it the small creamy particles of the cheese, which are, in fact, 
the richest part of it. After the curd is cut or broken, therefore, 
and not squeezed with the hand, and all the whey is allowed to 
separate from it that can be easily removed, the curd should be 
taken out of the tub with the greatest care, and laid upon a 
coarse cloth attached to a frame like a sieve, and there suffered 
to drain until it becomes quite dry and mealy, before being put 
into the press. The object of pressing should be, not to express 
the whey, but to consolidate the cheese. There should be no 
aim to make whey butter. All the butter extracted from the 
whey is so much of the proper richness taken from the cheese. 
These suggestions seem to me reasonable and valuable. I 
should be glad if our farmers could send the English even a 
much better article than that which they produce themselves. 
I should be glad to overcome every prejudice, on whichever side 
of the water it might be found, and transform the union of 
mutual trade into a perfect union of mutual good-will, between 



356 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

two natioiiS; whose joint interests interlock each other in a vast 
variety of forms, and may be made to fit together like the dif- 
ferent pieces of a dissected map.* 



* In conversation with one of the largest wholesale cheesemongers and pro- 
vision dealers in tlie country, he suggested that there were two great faults of 
the American cheese, which somewhat prejudiced its sale in the English markets. 
He is a person in whose character and experience entire confidence may be 
placed. 

He was pleased to say that he had had cheeses from the United States as good 
as any he had ever seen, and that the general character of the article ivas greatly 
improved since the first importations. 

But the first fault was the softness of the rind. It often cracked, and the 
clieese became spoiled from that circumstance. This he considered as owing to 
the cheese being too rich ; if so, it is a fault which may be remedied. The Eng- 
lish cheeses soon acquire a great firmness ; and I have given above the opinion 
of an English dairy-woman as to how this is effected. I think proper, however, 
to add the directions of a most experienced and successful dairy farmer in re- 
spect to this matter. He says tliat the rind may be made of any desired hard- 
ness, if the cheese be taken from the press, and allowed to remain in brine, so 
strong that it will take up no more salt, for four or five hours. There must be 
great care, however, not to keep it too long in the brine. 

The second fault is the acridness, or peculiai-ly smart bitter taste often found 
in American cheeses. He thought this might be due, in part, to some improper 
preparation or use of the rennet, and, in part, to some kind of feed which the 
coAvs found in the pastures. Both these matters are well worthy of investigation, 
and that alone can determine. 

He was of opinion, likewise, that American cheese would sell better if it were 
colored like the English cheese. The market for it was fast becoming most 
extensive. 

In respect to American butter, he considered that which usually came here as 
a most inferior article. (Much of it, I believe, is used, in the manufacturing dis- 
tricts, solely for greasing machinery.) Salt butter, or butter strongly salted, is 
not salable in the English market; and especially the salt must not appear. I 
cannot doubt, however, that presently some of our best June or September butter, 
put up in lumps, would find a good market here, — if, in truth, we have any to 
export. The very best fresh butter in London market, however, does not bring 
so high a price as I have often paid for the best article from the county of Wor- 
cester, in Boston market ; and I have frequently known the best butter to be sold 
in Baltimore, and even in Cincinnati market, for half a dollar, a little more than 
two shillings sterling per pound. 

I have seen in England none of the admirable spring-liouses which are to bo 
found in Pennsylvania. 



MANURES. 357 



ex. — MANURES. 

The subject of manures, in British husbandry, is one to which 
I cannot attempt to do any thing like justice, in an examination 
of this nature. It would require a large volume to treat it 
properly, rather than a few pages of a single report. I shall not 
enter at all in this place upon the philosophy of manures, but 
merely refer to some few which are in use. 

Of course, under any improved condition of husbandry, all 
possible pains will be taken, to secure in the best manner the 
various resources of the farm itself; and yet I have seen here 
no place in which this provision is complete, or in which more 
might not be done than has been done. 

In most cases, the stable manure is left in the barn-yard uncov- 
ered ; and I have not met with a single barn cellar for receiving 
manure, in the whole country. In general, the barn-yards are 
square, with the sheds extending round three sides of them, and 
the yard scooped out in the centre ; but it is not until recently 
that they have found the advantage of putting gutters and spouts 
to their farm buildings, for the prevention of the rain flooding 
the manure iii the yard, and thus exhausting its strength. In only 
one case — and that I have described — have I seen a shed and 
pit under it, for the protection of the manure. I have presumed 
sometimes to describe to the farmers the excellent barn cellars 
on many of the farms in New England, where the stable is built 
on a side hill, and all the manure is shovelled through a trap 
door behind the cattle, into a well-wallcd cellar, made tight at 
bottom, and opened by a gate at one side or end, for the purpose 
of removing the manure ; and where a certain number of store 
swine are kept, who, by constantly rooting among the manure 
and stirring it, keep it from heating excessively, while they in- 
termix it thoroughly, and reduce it to a fine state ; and where, 
too, the whole is protected from the wasting itifluences of the 
sun and rain, and is always in a condition to be applied to the 
field. Where the flatness of the land and the wetness of the 
soil would prevent making a cellar, the barn or stable might be 
of two stories in height, and the cattle kept on what with us is 
called the second story, but here always \.\\q first floor. 



358 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



In many cases, I have found provision for saving the liquid 
manure of the stables in a tank or cistern, from which it is either 
returned to the heap, or carried to the fields in a watering cart. 
I have already described a prominent example of this kind. The 
barn manure here is always carried to the side of the field on 
which it is to be used, and there it is formed into a long heap, in 
the neatest manner, and frequently covered with earth, so as to 
protect it from the weather. I have, in no case, seen long 
manure applied green from the stables. It is not, however, 
deemed best to keep it too long, or to reduce it to a very fine 
muck, by which its strength would be exhausted ; but it is 
always shovelled over once or twice, that it may be in a con- 
dition easy for distribution. The quantity to be applied to an 
acre is subject to no fixed rule. The land, as I have described, 
is well dressed once in a four years' rotation, besides the con- 
sumption of one of the crops by folding, and perhaps of another 
by grazing. 

Of the various artificial manures, which are manufactured and 
usually patented, I shall give no opinion. Any of the advertise- 
ments in the papers of the venders of quack medicines, if only 
the name of the article be changed, would serve for the adver- 
tisement of most of the new patent manures, they being adapted 
to all cases, and certain to cure all diseases. The adulteration 
of manures is carried on to an enormous extent. No man pur- 
chasing a valuable manure one year is certain to find it the same 
the next. An eminent professor of geology stated, at a public 
agricultural meeting, that much guano sold was mixed with 
ninety per cent, of foreign materials. Saltpetre is full charged 
with common salt ; and large amounts of guano, in several of the 
principal markets, have been manufactured entirely out of home 
materials. This is not an agreeable picture of the morals of 
trade, nor should it be inferred that this is a general character; 
but in so large a commercial country as this, with appetites 
whetted by gain to the highest degree of voracity, it is not sur- 
prising that all kinds of villany should be practised. 

1. Guano. — Guano still maintains its reputation. No new 
facts have transpired respecting it, but old ones have been con- 
firmed. It continues to be applied, at the rate of two hundred 
and even four hundred weight per acre, to various crops, with 



MANURES. 359 

signal success, unless its efficacy is suspended or defeated by 
drought, or unless it comes in immediate contact with the plant, 
when it proves fatal. It is never safely applied alone, and the 
preferred mixture is a very liberal proportion of mould. Its 
mixture with ashes, strongly recommended by some farmers, is, 
as I have before observed, of questionable expediency. In Dev- 
onshire, I witnessed the most extraordinary effects from it, this 
year, applied at the rate of about three hundred weight per acre, 
upon grass land. The extreme luxuriance and richness of the 
grass, where it was applied, were most remarkable, especially 
when seen in contrast with parts of the field not guanoed. Nor 
is its efficacy limited to one year, but continues for a length of 
time as yet not determined. But were its obvious effects lim- 
ited to one year only, yet the increase of crops growing out of 
its use furnishes, in itself, the means of greatly enriching the 
farm. 

2. The Nitrates. — The nitrates of soda and of potash, from 
which so much was at one time expected, because so much seemed 
to have been obtained, are very little used. I found an excellent 
farmer in Scotland, who applied the former with great success to 
his potatoes, and I have found farmers in England, whose expe- 
rience seems to prove the excellent effects of both upon wheat ; 
but the fact that they have generally fallen into disuse indicates, 
whether well founded or not, a strong distrust of their efficacy. 
One of their acknowledged effects, when applied to wheat, was 
very much to increase the stalk, without proportionately increas- 
ing the grain. The adulterations in these articles have been, I 
cannot say extraordinary, but flagrant and enormous. 

3. SooT. — Soot is applied, sometimes mixed in compost, at 
the rate of about forty bushels per acre, and should be applied 
early in the season. For potatoes, about half that quantity is 
used, and is deposited in the drill with the seed. With wheat, 
it is sown broadcast with clover and grass-seed, the ground 
being first harrowed. It is sometimes sown alone, broadcast, 
upon grass, and always with advantage. Its effect, however, 
upon the cereal crops is, to increase the stalk without a corre- 
spondent increase of the grain. As it is proved not to diminish 
the grain, this is to be considered a great point gained. 



360 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

In an experiment made in the Lothians, by one of the best 
farmers in the kingdom, he gave me the following as the result : — 

A piece of land, manured at the rate of eighty bushels of soot 
per Scotch acre, costing threepence per bushel, the product was 
7040 pounds of hay per Scotch acre. 

A second piece, manured in the same way, gave at the rate of 
6671 pounds of hay per Scotch acre. 

A third piece, without any top-dressing, produced at the rate 
of 5280 pounds per Scotch acre. 

The milkmen object to feeding cows upon land dressed with 
soot, and to using the hay from such land, from its giving a bad 
taste to the milk. This may be mere prejudice. I give the 
fact of their objections, without vouching for their correctness. 

4. Woollen Rags. — Woollen rags, the clippings of woollen 
cloth obtained from the factories under the name of shodclt/, and 
wool dust, and woollen refuse of every description, make a most 
valuable manure. Indeed, none ranks higher in value. Besides 
its own intrinsic efficacy, it becomes mixed or strongly im- 
pregnated with oil, used in the processes of manufacturing. 
Its effects are not immediate, and therefore it is not to be con- 
sidered as a forcing manure, but they are very durable; and 
when spread upon grass land, its efficacy is great and permanent. 
It is deemed, in the highest degree, rich in all the elements of 
vegetation. It is considered extremely valuable as an applica- 
tion to hop-grounds. The hop-growers in Surrey informed me 
that it was to be preferred to any other manure. It is deemed 
best to mix it very copiously with earth or mould ; and in this 
way it should be repeatedly shovelled over, in order to assist its 
decomposition. 

Mr. Hannam, in his excellent little treatise upon waste ma- 
nures, states the case of a farmer, who, on applying eight tons 
of shoddy compost per acre, obtained nine tons of hay, in a 
small hilly field, which before never gave him four tons. It is 
transported in large sacks, and is a regular article of merchandise. 

5. Lime. — The value of lime as a manure, if so it may be 
called, is still, with many farmers, questionable. I found an 
eminent farmer in Ayrshire, who considered its only value to be 
as a mechanical divider of the soil ; and in respect to another 



MANURES. 361 

farmer in Scotland, who, as far as my observation and the char- 
acter he holds in the county avail, as an intelligent and practical 
farmer has no superior in the kingdom, he stated to me that he 
had applied lime to his land liberally, for a quarter of a century, 
and never saw from it any benefit whatever. On the other 
hand, the innumerable instances in which it has been obviously 
beneficial, and where the improvement of the land can be traced 
to no other cause, compel one to conclude, in reference to its 
failures, that there must be something in the soil, or in the mode 
or circumstances of its application, not yet understood. Innu- 
merable instances are found where it has been efficacious at the 
first application, but its repeated applications have been per- 
nicious. I have already referred to a remarkable fact, that it 
seems most efficacious upon limestone and chalk soils. My 
readers shall have the benefit of the opinions of one of the most 
enlightened chemists, which I subjoin in a note.* 

* Professor Lyon Playfair, in a manuscript lecture with wliich he kindly favored 
me, thus speaks : — 

"When a chemist in his laboratory wishes to liberate tlie potash or silica from 
a soil which he is analyzing, he mixes it with lime and heats them togetlier. By 
this means he renders soluble, in acids or in water, all that was insoluble before. 
The farmer performs exactly the same operation as the chemist, when he limes 
his land. He liberates, by this means, the silica, the potash, and the phosphates, 
from the soil, and enables them to administer to the wants of vegetation. But 
by the operation he has furnished no equivalent for tliat removed by the crops ; 
and therefore it must infallibly happen, that the continuance of the system is 
nierely a continuance of a rapid system of exhausting the soil. A rich clay, 
abounding in potash, may long survive the treatment, but is as certainly going 
on to exhaustion as a granary of corn, out of which you take every day a certain 
amount of grain, and merely put in its place the key with which you opened the 
granary door. The lime is the key merely by which you opened the magazine 
of food contained in the soil. 

"I speak of it now in the principal way in which it is used; but it not infre- 
quently happens, that it may itself supply an absent constituent of the soil, es- 
pecially in cases such as clover and grasses, which experience much benefit 
from a top-dressing of this article. I do not say that the former use of lime is 
illegitimate, because clays often contain potash enough to last for thousands of 
years, if nothing more than tliat ingredient were required ; but, at tbc same time, 
tlie lime aids the plants in removing sulphates, phosphates, and otlier ingre- 
dients, which may be required for the purposes of their organism, without restor- 
ing what is abstracted. I have frequently found, in the examination of some 
limestones, lauded for tlieir superior excellence, that their action seemed to be 
due to the presence of some adventitious ingredient, such as magnesia, which 
could Iiave been supplied more efficiently by other means. 

" There is no manure more beneficially used, or more disgracefully abused, than 

VOL. II. 31 



363 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

6. Sea-sand. — In some parts of Ireland and England, near 
the sea-coast, very great quantities of sea-dredge or sand are used, 
probably" very much of the same character as the muscle-bed, 
much used in some parts of New England, and other maritime 
parts of the United States. 

In Ireland, principally on the western and northern coasts, 
immense quantities of this dredging are obtained ; and the num- 
ber of one-horse carts, especially near Cork, which I found en- 
gaged in the transportation of it, was remarkable. Two kinds 
of it are obtained, one full of shells, with their living tenants, 
and consequently abounding in animal matter. " The silicious 
sand usually amounts to from thirty to sixty per cent ; the shells 
to from twenty to fifty, and, beside carbonate, yield some phos- 
phate of lime and magnesia. There is, generally, from three to 
six per cent, animal matter, which yields nitrogen by its decom- 
position ; and from five to ten per cent, of salt water, which holds 
in solution common salt, and other ingredients of sea-water." * 

There is another variety of sand found in certain places on the 
western coast of Ireland, mixed with a substance resembling 

lime. In its principal action, it has no right to he called a manure, for a manure 
consists in the restoration of ingredients taken from the soil. But lime affords a 
key to rob the soil anew, so easily applied that Ave oflen find a farmer, who works 
slovenly, content himself with the application of lime, and by its means obtain the 
same results — accompanied, however, by a destruction of property — that he would 
by the drainage of the land, and by a proper system of rotation. Hence, we find 
it often substituted for the drain ; for the disintegration, which the air sliould 
effect in a drained field, is obtained by lime in one undrained. But the system, 
in the latter case, is a ruinous one to the landlord, and even to the tenant, if he 
remain on the soil ; and the cause is obvious, when you consider that he applies 
the lime without any knowledge of the quantity which should be used ; and not 
following it up by a proper rotation, first to take up the liberated potash, and then 
the liberated silica and phosphates, a large part of the valuable ingredients of the 
soil is washed away without any benefit to it. 

" I will merely refer to one part of the practice, with regard to the application 
of lime, because it will confirm still further, that its principal action is wliiit I 
have described. A favorite mode of applying lime is to mix it, wiiile hot, with 
earth, and after it has slacked itself, to spread the mixture on the field. By using 
the lime in this state, you produce a powerful effect in liberating the alkalies of 
the earth with which it was mixed, so that, when you spread it upon the field, you, 
in fact, spread with it a stock of nutriment in immediate readiness for the plant." 

I hope it will not be deemed presumptuous in me, to say that these remarks are 
extremely rational, sensible, and to the point. The subject, however, is not re 
lieved of all its difficulties. 

* Kane's Resources of Ireland. 



MANURES. 363 

coral, but which naturalists determine to be of vegetable origin, 
and which is rich in nitrogenous ingredients. This coral con- 
tains, likewise, phosphoric acid, and is greatly esteemed as a 
manure. These various sands are full of comminuted shells, and 
very rich in animal matter, either living or dead. They are 
applied at the rate of ninety bushels, or even double that quantity 
of bushels, to the acre. " To the large proportion of phosphate 
of lime contained in the crustaceous remains, and the nitro- 
genized matters of the fish, much of its importance, doubtless, is 
due." The farmers in the neighborhood of Cork come ten and 
twelve miles to obtain it ; and " it is dredged in the river from 
depths varying from ten to thirty feet." This, certainly, speaks 
strongly in favor of its value. 

In Cornwall, England, vast amounts of sand are found near 
the sea-shore, and are carried into the country. In examining 
this sand, which is obtained in inexhaustible quantities near parts 
of the coast, it appeared, in an extraordinary degree, to abound in 
broken shells. In analytical examination of the sands from dif- 
ferent localities, they have been found to abound in carbonate of 
lime, varying from forty-four to ninety-four per cent. A com- 
pany has been formed for calcining this sand, which serves to 
make it more soluble, and renders its action upon the soil more 
speedy. It is called the Cornwall patent manure ; and from 
the advertisements of the company, it might be inferred that it 
was exactly suited to all sorts of crops and all kinds of soils. Its 
beneficial efficacy in many cases cannot be doubted. 

I have referred thus particularly to these manures, that the 
farmers living in the maritime parts of the United States might 
be induced to look after resources of fertilizing their lands, within 
their reach, which may have hitherto escaped their oliservation. 

7. Super-phosphate of Lime. — Bones, broken and ground, 
have been a long time employed as manure in England, and 
with wonderful efficacy. Indeed, the extraordinary improve- 
ments in some parts of the country have been Avholly ascribed 
to the application of bones. It was found, likewise, contrary to 
all expectations, that bones which had been through the hands 
of the soap-boiler, and from which all the animal and gelatinous 
matter had been thus abstracted, and that even bones which had 
been calcined, were of equal efficacy with those which were ap- 



364 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

plied in a green state, and fully charged with animal matter. It 
was also ascertained that bones applied as a manure, beyond a 
certain point, were not efficacious in proportion to the quantity 
applied ; and that sixty bushels of bones to an acre, produced no 
more beneficial effect than sixteen or twenty. Here experience 
and inquiry were confoiuided, and here science came trium- 
phantly to their aid. 

Upon examination, it was ascertained that what gave the 
efficacy to bones was the phosphorus contained in them, con- 
nected with an acid. It was not ascertained that the animal 
portion of the bones was of no importance ; but it was slower in 
its effects, in ameliorating the soil, than the inorganic portion of 
the bones ; and that what was mainly important, in the application 
of bones, was to supply this inorganic portion in a form that it 
should speedily be taken up. In an ordinary state, this phos- 
phorus was combined with lime, in such proportions that it was 
not easily dissolved ; but. Professor Liebig, to whom agricultural 
science is so greatly indebted, discovered that, by the application 
of sulphuric acid to the bones, a portion of this lime would be 
abstracted, and go into another form ; and a salt would be left con- 
taining a much larger proportion of phosphorus, — and so called 
the super-phosphate of lime, — which was soluble in water, and 
would be at once taken up by the plant. 

" Phosphate of lime is a substance very difficult of solution ; 
and thus, in a very dry season, the effects of bones are slight 
and imperfect. Super-phosphate of lime, on the other hand, is 
extremely soluble, so much so that the vitriolized bones can be 
entirely dissolved or suspended in water, and thus applied. This 
at once explains the cause of the valuable properties of the 
preparation. The bones in their natural state are extremely 
indigestible ; the acid cooks them — converts them into a species 
of soup, which can readily be eaten and digested by the young 
turnips. The adamantine fetters, with which the various ele- 
ments composing bones are bound so compactly together, arc 
by means of this new agent burst asunder — the compact is 
broken, and each constituent element is left to pursue its own 
course, and exercise its own natural affniities." * 

The effects of this preparation of the bones has answered 



* Spooner's Prize Essay. Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vii. p. J 



MANURES. 365 

every expectation ; and where before sixteen and twenty bushels 
of bones were applied to an acre, in the growth particularly of 
turnips, four bushels, prepared with sulphuric acid, are found 
now to be even more effectual. The advantages of such a 
preparation are very great, — first, in stimulating and forwarding 
the growth of the plant ; next, in the cheapness of the applica- 
tion ; and next, in its so forcing the plant, as soon to place it 
beyond the reach of the fly, which never attacks it after the third 
leaf is formed. 

The best mode of preparing the manure has been matter of 
various experiments, and deserves inquiry from the acrid nature 
of the acid employed — the oil of vitriol. Mr. Pusey advises, to 
erect a heap of fine mould, and, forming a basin or crater in the 
centre, to place the amount of bones to be dissolved in it, and to 
apply gradually an amount of sulphuric acid equal to half the 
weight of the bones, which, after a short time, will completely 
dissolve them : and then, shovelling and mixing the mould to- 
gether, the manure will all be in a condition to be distributed by 
a machine in the drills prepared for sowing the turnip seed. 

Mr. Tennant, of Shields, one of the best farmers in Scotland, 
puts twenty-five bushels of bones into three old iron boilers, and 
next pours in two bottles of acid, containing one hundred and 
seventy pounds each, and adds eighteen gallons of water to each 
boiler. In a day or two, they empty the contents of the boilers 
into two cart-loads of light mould, with which it is thoroughly 
intermixed ; and, being turned over three or four times, after 
seven or eight weeks the compost becomes dry and mealy, and 
can be spread by the hand. 

Mr. Spooner advises, to place the bones in a hogshead, and 
pour the acid upon them at the rate of one third of the weight 
of the bones in acid, that is, to one hundred and eighty pounds 
of bones sixty pounds of acid; and, after it becomes sufficiently 
dissolved, to mix it with ashes, and apply it in that form. He 
recommends, likewise, that, first of all, the acid should be mixed 
with one fourth of its weight of water, or perhaps half as much 
water as acid, which will raise it to the temperature of 300° 
Fahr., and will much assist the dissolving process. Too 
much care cannot be taken to guard against the effects of the 
acid upon the clothes or skin of the operator. 

The beneficial effects of this application arc now beyond ques- 
31* 



366 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

tion. Mr. Spooner cites a case in which two bushels of vitriol- 
ized bones, with ashes, gave as good a crop as sixty bushels of 
bones unprepared. To Swede turnips it seems more congenial 
and efficient than to white turnips. Where the crop of turnips 
is of so much importance as here, this discovery is of immense 
consequence. Whether it will be equally beneficial to other crops, 
— to wheat or grain crops, — is to be decided by further trials. 
The experiments reported by one farmer, in reference to a crop 
of carrots the second year after its application, and to a field 
sown with barley one year after its application, showed most 
decidedly, so far, its permanent beneficial influences. 

There are other manures used here, which I shall find it 
more convenient to notice in another part of my work, and 
which, therefore, I now pass over. Some experiments, however, 
have been made in Cornwall, with top-dressing land with straw, 
which I shall refer to, as at least highly curious ; and which 
deserve notice, as possible to lead to most important practical 
results. They rest upon highly respectable authority. The 
subject has been frequently referred to in the public papers, but 
a detailed statement has been given by the secretary of the 
Cornwall Experimental Club, and published in a late Journal of 
the Royal Agricultural Society, from which I shall abridge the 
account. 

8. Fibrous Covering, or Gurneyism. — Mr. G. Gurney ob- 
served that, " if a bush or other fibrous matter were left lying in 
a field of grass, the vegetation beneath it would soon be observed 
to be finer or fresher than that around it. This was a fact 
known to every one, but the agency by which this increase of 
growth was brought about, evidently involving some great and 
important but unknown principle, had never been investigated. 
Flags, rushes, straw, bushes, or, in short, any fibrous covering, 
would produce a similar eftect. Reeds, or wheaten straw, 
applied over grass, at the rate of about a load to a load and a 
half per acre, would, in a short time, increase the quantity of 
grass to an incredible extent. The various grasses under it 
would be found to be healthy, and rapidly passing through the 
stages to maturity, some growing, some flowering, some seeding. 
Part of a field of grass placed under this operation for one month 
had increased in weight, over the remaining portion left uncov- 



MANURES. 367 

ered, at the rate of nearly three to one. The green grass from 
the part untouched, cut at the end of the month, weighed two 
thousand two hundred and seven pounds per acre ; that of the 
portion placed under the operation weighed five thousand eight 
hundred and seventy pounds per acre. The grass was weighed 
as it came from the scythe. During this period, there was not 
a drop of rain ; and guano, nitrate of soda, lime, shell-sand, 
wood-ashes, and other manures, tried against it, possibly from the 
drought, produced, during this period, no very visible action. In 
this experiment, the fibrous covering was laid on the 15th of 
April, and the grass cut and weighed the 30th of May. Half of 
a hay-field was covered on the 2d of May ; and a month after, I 
had cut and weighed, respectively, the portions of the field cov- 
ered and uncovered, and found that the one weighed three thou- 
sand four hundred and sixty pounds per acre, whilst the other 
weighed only nine hundred and seventy pounds. As to the 
length of the grasses in the respective pieces, the trefoil in one 
case measured three and one half inches, whilst in the other it 
only measured an inch ; clover six inches, in the other one and 
one half." He found, on making the two samples of grass into 
hay, that the proportionate loss of weight was the same in each 
parcel, and the difference would be, that in the one case he 
should get three tons to an acre, and in the other only one. 
Another most important circumstance in the case was, that when 
"a certain quantity of stall dung would double the quantity of 
grass in a given time, when laid on in the usual way, that it 
would increase it six times, when properly treated with fibrous 
covering." 

These are certainly very curious experiments, and they have 
been repeated successfully by various individuals. "For an in- 
dividual to satisfy himself, a bundle of straw, say forty pounds, 
strewed lightly over two or three roods of growing grass, would 
in a very short time show the effect, when raked off. In the 
experiments made, all gave uniform results, when conducted 
fairly. Some used too much covering, but generally too little. 
All these experiments showed that the action was general ; that 
the difference in increase of growth, in a given time, was in pro- 
portion to the natural fertility of the soil." 

" The practical instructions lor the use of fibrous covering are 
few, but essential to profitable results. Straw of wheat, oats, or 



368 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

rushes, is to be lightly and evenly laid over growing grass, m 
the proportion of about a ton to a ton and a half per acre. At 
the end of a fortnight, it must be raked up in heaps like hay- 
cocks, the grass eaten off by cattle, and the covering again relaid. 
This is necessary in the growing season, otherwise the herbage 
will grow through, by which the action will cease ; the grass 
will also become entangled with the covering. If the land is 
good, the grass may generally be eaten off by cattle before the 
covering is relaid ; if not, at the end of the next fortnight (more 
or less depending on the richness of the land, the season, and the 
weather,) it should be done, and the covering relaid again ; and 
repeated at about these periods through the season. If straw be 
the material used, it will last through the whole summer. In 
the autumn it is the practice to rake it off when dry, carry it 
away, and stack it for winter litter. Ground under the action of 
fibrous covering, we find from our returns, will keep three times 
the quantity of cattle as ground not so treated. This experience 
seems in keeping with our experiments on weight and measure, 
of the produce thus obtained." 



CXI. — GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 

I have deemed it proper to lay these various results, resting as 
they do upon the most respectable authority, before my readers, 
to whose knowledge they might not otherwise come. If they 
have no other beneficial effect, they will stimulate inquiry, and 
prompt to other experiments. The philosophy of these results is 
as yet in obscurity. The facts in art and science which are con- 
tinually disclosing themselves to our investigations are most 
extraordinary and wonderful, and show that we are yet only in 
the infancy of knowledge. The glimmerings of the early dawn 
will presently advance to meridian splendor. It is the province 
of science to investigate the causes of things ; this is the work 
of the human mind; and how can it be more worthily or rev- 
erently employed? 

I have been charged, more than once in the progress of these 



GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 369 

reports, with a want of respect for science. I regret if I have 
given — unwittingly it must have been — any grounds for such a 
charge. Nothing can be more foreign from the truth. Science, 
however small my claims to any affinity with her, I love and 
honor. Bat mere theory I distrust ; self-conceit, which is often 
harmless, amuses me ; unfounded pretensions I hold at their true 
value ; and low and interested quackery I despise. What is 
science? Not merely the knowledge of books ; not merely a fa- 
miliarity with the technical rules of any art ; not mere hypothesis 
and conjecture, however subtle and profound. But the observa- 
tion and the accumulation of facts ; the following them out in 
all their relations and bearings ; and the tracing, as far as human 
sagacity can go, all the circumstances and influences, of which 
they appear to follow as the necessary consequences and results. 
This is the work of mind wherever mind is found. This pro- 
ficiency will be most essentially assisted by the knowledge of 
facts already established and ascertained ; by artificial processes 
and appliances already invented and familiar to the learned. But 
let us not consider these investigations as the exclusive business 
and monopoly of the schools. What I want to see is the uni- 
versal mind awake. I want that men should every where 
be induced to open their minds to the beautiful and sublime 
creation, in the centre of which God has placed them, and seek 
to understand more of it and of themselves. I want that the 
man who follows the plough, when he opens the bosom of the 
bountiful and wonder-working earth, should read lessons of 
divine wisdom written upon its teeming furrows. I want the 
sower when he scatters his quickening seed, and sees those 
diminutive grains which he throws about him rising from the 
earth in forms of matchless beauty, gay with flowers, and at last 
rich in fruits, and pouring into his lap, as the compensation of 
his toil, the bread which is to sustain and make life happy, hum- 
bly but importunately to inquire. How is this miracle effected? 
I want the farmer, when he sees his reeking heap of refuse, now 
offensive and loathsome to the sense, when cast upon the earth, 
returning to bless him in the richest products of health, and 
comfort, and life, to follow out, as far as his sagacity can explore, 
these subtle and marvellous operations of a beneficent providence. 
I want men should work with their minds as well as their bodies ; 
and I wish that the penalties of indolence and neglect, in the 



370 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

one case, were as severe as in the other. All the practical opera- 
tions of husbandry furnish ample materials for inquiry and re- 
flection ; and inquisitive and reflecting minds, constantly engaged 
in them, have some peculiar advantages in the study of them, 
over philosophers exclusively confined to their closets and their 
laboratories. There is every encouragement to exertion pre- 
sented even to the most humble. One of the most distinguished 
ornaments of the school of English chemistry — a man whose 
attainments would do honor to any country and any age — was 
devoted, in early life, to a purely mechanical trade, and, by the 
determined energies of his own mind, has made his way, by uni- 
versal acclamation, to the proud preeminence which he occupies.* 
Some of the greatest discoveries in the arts and in science have 
been made by men of comparatively unassisted genius. I should 
be too happy, if I could feel that my humble labors had, even in 
the smallest degree, contributed to induce men to respect their 
own minds ; to lead the laboring portion of the community, 
while they are working with their hands, to be as active in 
working with their understandings ; and to become ambitious to 
bring from their own personal inquiry and experience their con- 
tributions, however small, to the great and rapidly accumulating 
mass of human knowledge. So far from contemning science, I 
reverence it with a species of idolatry — an idolatry, I trust, pardon- 
able, for it is only a form of homage to the great Source and Centre 
of all intelligence. In the mind of man, enlarged and improved 
by science, I recognize the proper foundation of moral as well as 
of intellectual greatness ; and I adore with humble gratitude the 
reflection — very partial and limited indeed it is — of that wis- 
dom and intelligence, which created, guide, arrange, fill, and 
bless an eternal and boundless universe. 

* Professor Faraday. 




,■>* 



1 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



NINTH REPORT. 



CXIL — FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 

The agriculture of France is its great and commanding inter- 
est. Its manufactures and commerce are considerable ; but its 
manufactures are mainly concerned in the fabrication, and its 
commerce in the transportation and exchange, of the products of 
its own soil. I should have no difficulty in giving the statistical 
returns of the agriculture of France ; but this comes only in a 
limited degree within my province, and a long table of mere 
numbers would convey little instruction to my readers. It is of 
great advantage to France, however, that it procures these returns 
regularly ; and thus, as in the late scarcity of grain and in the 
failure of the potato crop, enabled the government to provide 
early, with a humane foresight, against the sufferings which were 
likely to follow. It is sufficient to say that France has nearly 
thirty-six millions of inhabitants ; and that in ordinary seasons 
she is able, to a great extent, to feed her own people from her 
own soil. 



CXIII. — SOIL AND ASPECT. 

The agriculture of a country of necessity corresponds to its 
climate, soil, and aspect. Besides these physical conditions, it 



372 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

depends upon many circumstances of a political or moral char- 
acter, and others which may be termed accidental. The terri- 
tory of France, stretching through nearly eight degrees of latitude, 
is susceptible of a great variety of cultivation. On the eastern 
side, it feels the cold influences of a range of mountains covered 
with perpetual snow ; on its western side, its climate is softened 
by the vicinity of the broad Atlantic ; its northern portions gather 
humidity from the ocean which bounds it ; its southern portions 
enjoy the sunny influences of an early spring and an almost 
tropical summer, and of the vapors which rise from that most 
beautiful of all waters, the Mediterranean, which laves its 
shores. Its territory is traversed in various directions by several 
magnificent rivers, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Loire, the Garonne, 
the Seine ; and many minor tributaries, which, if they have not 
the magnitude of many of the rivers of the western world, aff"ord 
nevertheless great facilities for inland navigation and transporta- 
tion ; and, at the same time, present on their banks a large extent 
of alluvial land of the most productive quality. 

While the soil of these alluvial lands is most excellent, the soil 
of the high grounds, as far as it has come under my observation, 
is of an inferior quality. It is in general strongly calcareous, 
with the lime or chalk forming almost the entire surface. In dry 
weather, such lands suffer from the drought, and in wet weather 
nothing can be more unpleasant to work. Large portions of land 
likewise are found composed almost wholly of a yellov/ ochrey 
sand or gravel, mixed at the same time with an aluminous sub- 
stance, and apparently highly charged with iron, which consti- 
tutes a soil very unfriendly to vegetation. Of soils purely alumi- 
nous or clayey I have met with few ; but there are many of a 
mixed character, with a loam of considerable thickness on the 
surface. These are capable of great improvement and produc- 
tiveness. In some parts of the country, lime and gypsum (sul- 
phate of lime) are abundant; and marl of an unctuous and 
enriching quality is found in many places. 



CROPS. THE FORESTS OF PRANCE. 373 



CXIV. — CROPS. 

The common crops of France are wheat, rye, barley, oats, 
beans, and potatoes ; but its peculiar crops are, beets for sugar, 
grapes for wine, and silk. Leguminous crops, or esculent vegeta- 
bles, excepting to a comparatively small amount, for luiman food, 
are little cultivated ; oats and barley, it seemed to me, only to a 
limited extent ; buckwheat, in the poorer parts of the country, 
in a small measure ; and although the southern portions of 
France, or more than one half of the kingdom, would produce 
Indian corn, it does not appear to be largely cultivated, and its 
value seems imperfectly appreciated. Hay, or grass for hay, 
cannot be said to be largely cultivated ; but there are extensive 
meadows, which are left in permanent grass. Of the grasses 
cultivated for feeding, lucern (if it may be called a grass) and 
sainfoin occupy the first place. The former, when cut green, 
forms the principal food of the stock during the summer, and 
when dried makes also an excellent fodder. Vetches do not 
appear to be extensively cultivated, the preference being decidedly 
given to lucern. Beans and lentils are cultivated in some 
districts. Hemp, tobacco, and flax, are likewise grown ; but 
they cannot be considered as prominent crops. Cabbages are 
sometimes largely cultivated for stock; turnips rarely; and few 
fields of ruta-baga, of any great extent, have ever met my eye. 
I have seen large crops of colza and rape, but they do not pre- 
dominate. It must be understood that I make these observations 
with great diffidence. France is a large territory : different 
portions of it, in all their habits, differ much from other portions. 
It would require years to give a thorough and perfect account of 
its husbandry, instead of a brief and cursory examination, which 
is all that my limits admit of. 



CXV. — THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 

In travelling through France, one is constantly impressed with 
the immense tracts of land Avhich are in forest. The forest con- 
voL, II. 32 



374 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

nected with the palace at Fontainbleau, only about fifty miles 
from Paris, is said to contain 35,000 acres ; the forest connected 
with the palace of Chambord, 20,000 acres. There are other 
forests in France of great extent, some of them being portions of 
the national domain, and many of them the property of individual 
proprietors. They are not, however, kept merely for show, or 
luxury, or sport. The heath, or common lands, in France, which 
remain open and unproductive, are returned as 19,499,180 acres, 
or about one seventh part of the whole surface of the kingdom. 
The fuel generally used in France is wood or charcoal. There 
are, it is said, large deposits of mineral coal in France ; but they 
are not extensively worked, or are not easily accessible, though 
their value is beginning to be appreciated. Wood, therefore, is 
grown for fuel, and comes to market by means of the great rivers 
and canals in the form of wood or coal ; so that these forests are 
regularly and gradually cut off for timber or fuel, and either 
replanted or suffered to grow again from the old stumps. The 
law permits the proprietors to cut off their wood only once in 
eighteen years ; and this under the control of a government 
inspector, who requires that it should be cut clean, leaving only 
such trees as may be valuable for ship-timber or for other pur- 
poses, which the government claims a right to take for its own 
uses at an equitable price. Under these excellent arrangements, 
the supply of fuel is constantly kept good, and the price of wood 
has scarcely varied for a quarter of a century. In the cities, and 
in many parts of France, wood is always sold by the pound ; and 
it is curious in Paris to see the immense arks of charcoal and 
wood which come down the Seine, and piles of wood in the city, 
covering acres of ground, and on a level with the tops of the 
highest houses. The value of the timber in these immense 
forests is likewise great. Although throughout France the prin- 
cipal and almost universal material for building is stone, yet 
much timber and boards are wanted for floors and roofs, and 
various purposes ; and many large proprietors think that they 
cannot make a better provision for their children than by planting 
forests, or preserving and cherishing such as they already have. 



A FRENCH LANDSCAPE. THE FRENCH PEASANTRY. 375 



CXVL — A FRENCH LANDSCAPE. 

A French landscape is peculiar. A large portion of the terri- 
tory is comparatively level, with few great inequalities. The 
appearance resembles that of some of the large prairies of the 
United States ; for in a great portion of France fences of any 
kind are unknown. Here and there a large farm-house, or what 
is called a chateau, or castle, meets the eye, with its customary 
appendages; but the laboring people chiefly live in villages, 
which seem scattered about like islands, and are generally known 
by the spire of the church overtopping the cluster of houses. 
The French villages more resemble compact towns than country 
villages ; the streets are ordinarily paved ; the houses are placed 
directly upon the street ; and though there are usually or fre- 
quently gardens attached to the houses, it is remarkable that 
there are no trees either for shade or ornament in the streets. 
Yet the great roads through the country, which are usually as 
straight as they can be made, furnishing a paved way in the 
centre, and two side paths which are unpaved, are commonly 
lined with trees on each side for many miles. 



CXVII.— THE FRENCH PEASANTRY. 

Excepting with the great farmers, where there are small build- 
ings for the residence of the permanent laborers ordinarily in the 
court-yard, or immediate neighborhood of the great house, the 
peasants generally live in the villages, and sometimes go long 
distances to their work. They rise early, and among their first 
duties are those of religion ; their first visit being, in most cases, 
to the village church, which is open at all hours. I have often 
met them there in the morning, when it was scarcely light 
enough to see the way ; and I have found crowds of them in the 
churches at night, after their return from labor, when, with only 
one or two lamps burning over the altar in the church, it has 



376 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

been so dark that the dress of persons could not be distinguished 
until you came within arm's length of them. It is the beauty 
of the Catholic religion, that, although it is in a degree social, 
it is at the same time individual and personal in its character ; 
that although the ceremonials of the worship are of a splendid, 
and often gorgeous description, yet the worshipper seems regard- 
less of every thing but his own particular part in the service, 
which he performs silently, and generally with an intensity and 
an abstractedness which are remarkable ; and in churches whose 
splendor and magnificence it would require a brilliant pen to 
describe, I hav^e seen laboring men in their frocks, and with their 
spades upon their shoulders, and market-women with their 
baskets upon their arms, go up to the altar, and after perform- 
ing their devotions, and evidently with no other object in their 
thoughts, go away to their labors. 

In all parts of Europe the women are as much engaged in 
the labors of the field as the men, and perform indiscriminately 
the same kinds of labor. Having been much among the peas- 
antry and the laboring classes both at home and abroad, I must 
in truth say, that a more civil, cleanly, industrious, frugal, sober, 
or better dressed people than the French peasantry, for persons 
in their condition, in the parts of the country which I have 
visited, and especially the women, I have never knov/n. The 
civility and courtesy, even of the most humble of them, are very 
striking. There is neither servility nor insolence among them : 
their economy is most remarkable ; drunkenness is scarcely 
known ; their neatness, even when performing the dirtiest work, 
is quite exemplary; cheerfulness, and an innocent hilarity, are 
predominant traits in their character. 

The wages of the French peasantry are in general from a franc 
to a franc and a half per day to a man, that is, ten to fifteen pence, 
or twenty to thirty cents ; and to women about four fifths of the 
former sum, or about eight pence, or sixteen cents. In this case, 
they ordinarily provide entirely for themselves. In harvest, 
however, or under extraordinary circumstances, they are pro- 
vided for in addition to their wages. Cofiee and tea are scarcely 
known among them. They drink no ardent spirits. Their 
usual drink is an acid wine, not so strong as common cider, and 
this mixed with water; they have meat but rarely; occasionally 
fish ; but their general provision is soup, composed chiefiy of 



SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 377 

vegetables and bread. Bread, both wheat and rye, is \vith them 
literally the staff of life. With all this they enjoy a ruddy 
health ; and the women are diligent to a proverb. They seem 
unwilling to lose a. moment's time. I have repeatedly seen them 
carrying heavy burdens upon their heads, and at the same time 
knitting as they went along. 



CXVIIL — SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF 
PROPERTY. 

The size of farms in France has been a subject of much dis- 
cussion. The right of primogeniture has ceased to exist there : 
and since the great revolution, the law has ordained that the 
land possessed by any one at his death should be equally divided 
among his children. This did not take place without a hard 
struggle against it on the part of the great proprietors, nor without 
many predictions of ruin to the agriculture of France, from the 
infinite subdivisions which the land was likely to undergo, and 
the small size to which farms were about to be reduced. The 
law, however, has been maintained, and, as far as I have been 
able to observe, with the happiest results to France.* It was 
predicted, that, under such an arrangement, no system of exten- 
sive agricultural improvement could be attempted ; and that 
small proprietors being thus multiplied, and the laborers them- 

* In France the total number of taxed landed properties is stated, in 1835, to 
have been 10,89G,G82, and these were again divided into 12-3,300,338 separate 
pieces of land. It is supposed, however, that of heads of families occupying 
estates, which combine many of these smaller divisions, and which consequently 
become merely nominal partitions, thei'e are about 5,000,000. Now, allowing 
an average of four to a family, it will be seen that tliere are 20,000,000 of peo- 
ple in France directly interested in the property of the soil. The number of 
proprietors of the soil in England, who hold landed property yielding a rent of 
£100 sterling per year, is stated, at the same time, at 38,000 ; and the whole 
mimber of proprietors of the soil in England and Wales is rated at 200,000, and 
in the whole United Kingdom at 600,000. The extent of the United Kingdom 
is about two thirds that of France. — Statistique GinSrale de la France, par 
Schnitzler, torn. iii. p. 11. 
32* 



378 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

selves becoming proprietors, the lands of the country were 
destined to go into the hands of men without capital, too igno- 
rant to understand or learn the best modes of cultivation, and 
without the power of applying, even if they knew, them. 

These objections are not wholly without force ; but as this 
subject possesses considerable interest for many persons, I hope 
to be excused for enlarging upon it. It happens with respect to 
many things which are deemed evils, or from which evil conse- 
quences seem likely to result, that there is a compensating or 
balancing power at work, which, if left free to operate, of itself 
corrects the irregularities, restores the equilibrium, and prevents 
the evils apprehended. If all France were to be cut up and 
divided into pieces of ground of the size of a table-cloth, as, from 
the comments made upon this law by those who know nothing 
of its actual operation, one would suppose was likely soon to be 
the case, we should expect a state of things extremely adverse 
to the national prosperity. But it must be remembered, that 
while the law requires an equal division of the land among his 
children at the death of a proprietor, it does not require that the 
land should remain thus divided. The appropriation of it is left 
optional with those who inherit it ; and in this, as in other cases, 
they will be governed by their interests, their convenience, and 
other nameless circumstances by which human conduct is ordi- 
narily influenced. A father dying and leaving several heirs, sons 
and daughters, it is scarcely probable that they will all wish to 
devote themselves to agriculture, and this too when the parts of 
such property growing out of this division would be, either of 
them, too small, under any circumstances, for the support of a 
family. The result is, as we should expect it would be in such 
case, that some one of the heirs purchases the rights of the 
others, and the farm remains in its integrity. 

What, then, is the advantage of such a law ? It is, that it 
leaves this matter, as it should be left, to the choice of the parties 
concerned ; and that it in fact prevents the too great accumula- 
tion of landed property in the hands of individuals. Tliere can 
hardly be a greater evil, in countries where labor is abundant, 
and population presses hard upon the means of subsistence, than 
that immense tracts of land, which might be made productive, 
should be locked u\) in the hands of individuals who will neither 
use the land themselves, nor suffer it to be used by others. It 



SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 379 

seems a violation of natural right, justice, and humanity ; and 
there are many circumstances in the condition of society in the 
old world, which indicate that it must be modified or abandoned. 
One of the first duties of society is, to give to every man a 
perfect security in the enjoyment of the fruits of his own indus- 
try ; but it is equally the duty of society to secure to every man 
disposed to labor an opportunity, as far as possible, fully and 
effectually to exert that industry. The end which governments 
ordinarily .aim at, is the protection of property; and almost all 
laws, being made by men of property, have this for their great 
object. But wealth is ordinarily quite able to take care of itself ; 
and the object of government should be to protect poverty, which 
constantly requires protection. The true wealth of a community 
is its labor, its productive labor. A man is not the richer for 
houses which he cannot occupy, lands which he cannot use, 
money that he cannot spend. He might own a continent in the 
moon, but what would that avail him ? He might die of starva- 
tion in the vaults of the Bank of England, or in the undisturbed 
possession of the richest of the mines of Peru. Labor is the 
great source and instrument of subsistence and wealth. Labor, 
therefore, honest labor, should be, under all circumstances, the 
great object of the protection and encouragement of every just 
government. Laws should be such as to secure to labor, as far 
as possible, an open field for exertion. Such is the tendency of 
the laws of France respecting the posthumous division of landed 
estates. The laws of primogeniture, by which large landed 
estates go exclusively into the hands of the eldest son, and laws 
of mortmain, by which lands are forever appropriated to particular 
uses, are laws of a different description. The law of primogeni- 
ture seems to many persons essentially unjust in the favoritism 
which it implies, among those who obviously have equal claims 
upon parental kindness and impartiality. The law of mortmain 
and perpetual devises, by which extensive landed estates are 
locked up and appropriated in perpetuity to particular uses, has 
met with many warm combatants. They ask, and with what 
reason I shall leave to the judgment of my readers, Was not the 
land given to man, that from it, by his labor, he might obtain a 
subsistence, which, in truth, can come from no other source ? 
Now, shall any man, or set of men, so monopolize and appropriate 
this land, that it shall not be available to these objects ? It would 



380 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

seem that the earth belongs to those who possess it ; and that, 
when a man once quits it forever, his rights in it should cease ; 
yet society admits the remarkable fact, that men who died cen- 
turies ago shall determine how the land at present shall be used 
and appropriated ; or that it shall not be used nor appropriated 
at all. 

It does not come within my province to enter upon matters 
of dispute, which, in a period full of questions and inquiries, seem 
to be assuming importance, and are becoming matters. of private 
and public discussion. I am well aware of the necessity of 
giving as perfect a security as human society admits of to the 
rights of property ; but these rights, it would seem, should be 
held in subserviency to a still higher right, and that is, the right, 
to live. That which a man produces by his industry or toil, by 
his skill or genius, exerted without prejudice to the equal rights 
of another man, is his own; it is his exclusively, and it should 
be his in perpetuity ; that is, the appropriation of it should be 
his, and should be uncontrolled excepting so far as to prevent its 
application to an immoral object, to an object prejudicial to 
health or life, or to the public peace and welfare. But the appro- 
priation of the soil itself to any object in perpetuity, the shutting 
it up from use, the prevention of its occupation for purposes of 
human comfort and subsistence, seem incompatible with those 
natural rights with which the Creator endowed man when he 
commanded him to till the eartli, that he might from it obtain a 
subsistence. The laws in many of the states of the United 
States, when the property of a debtor is seized for the payment 
of his debts, very properly take care to leave him in the posses- 
sion of the tools of his trade, that he may still provide for his 
own, and the subsistence of those dependent on him. A law 
which would rob him of his tools, and, while the community 
and his duty to himself and his family require that he should by 
his labor provide for himself and them, should virtually put it 
out of his power to exert that industry, would be of the same 
character with that which, under any pretence or form, in the 
midst of hungry and starving thousands, excludes them from the 
use of that soil from which Heaven designed they should get 
their bread, and from which only it can be obtained. It is one 
of the great effects of the revolution which gave independence 
to the United States, and of the great French revolution, that 



SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 381 

it broke up these restrictive laws, and in general left property in 
land to follow the usual course of other property ; and, above all, 
made it universally attainable. 

In the United States, where land is abundant, and where 
countless millions of acres must remain for countless years unoc- 
cupied, laws restraining the monopoly of land are far less neces- 
sary ; but even in the United States they should have a care to 
guard against the perpetual appropriation of land for any objects 
whatever, whether under the plea of pious or of moral uses, as in 
fact a direct violation of the rights of every generation to judge 
for itself, and to judge only for itself, what shall or shall not be 
maintained ; and secondly, as conferring a power which experi- 
ence shows is liable to gross and injurious abuses. 

A principal objection urged against this subdivision of land is, 
that it prevents any system of extensive improvement of the soil 
by the great processes of modern discovery, — draining and sub- 
soiling. This argument has some force ; but we may hope that 
in many cases the owners, seeing their own interests clearly con- 
cerned in such improvements, may combine their forces to effect 
them. In many of these small holdings, likewise, the cultivation 
being by the spade, and not by the plough, the land will be 
trenched as a substitnte for subsoiling, and an equal productive- 
ness secured. Where such improvements are obviously demanded, 
and they might be too great for individual effort to accomplish, 
there seems no reason why the government itself should not 
undertake them, assessing the expense upon the different owners 
of the land in such forms as would be equitable, and made 
payable at such periods as would render its discharge easily 
practicable. 

It is objected likewise that these small farmers having no 
capital to apply in the cultivation of their lands, and being of a 
class not likely to be acquainted with modern improvements in 
husbandry, their agriculture will probably be of an inferior char- 
acter. These objections must be allowed some weight ; but then 
the holders of these small parcels are acting under the most 
powerful of all stimulants — that of their own immediate self-inter- 
est. They themselves being the owners of the soil, whatever 
improvements it receives, and whatever crops it produces, must 
accrue directly to their own benefit. The holding being small, 
it becomes the more important that it should be forced to the 



382 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

greatest extent, in order to meet their wants. This circumstance 
will prompt to the greatest exertions in procuring from every 
available source, and in saving their manure for the enriching of 
their small farms. Labor and economy, thus applied, may be 
said in themselves to constitute a valuable and active capital. 

But in place of speculations, let us revert to facts, and inquire 
how this system has actually worked in France. It has pro- 
duced a great revolution in the tenure of property ; but from the 
best inquiries I could make among the most intelligent and can- 
did, I found a unanimous and emphatical acknowledgment of its 
beneficial results. In what may most properly be called the 
rural districts, — that is, a district somewhat remote from large 
towns and villages, — there are found farms in size from one hun- 
dred to five hundred, se-ven hundred, and a thousand acres, and 
upwards; and so it seems likely to remain. The law, though it 
requires a division of the real estate among the heirs, does not 
make it compulsory to continue such division. The law in fact 
does little else in such situations than, so to say, to bring the 
land into the market, and leave it then to be disposed of accord- 
ing to the circumstances of time and place. 

But in cases of partition, we may suppose a farm of twelve 
hundred acres divided among four heirs ; they would have farms 
of a respectable size ; divided again, it would leave farms of 
seventy-five acres each, which perhaps may be considered the 
average size of farms in New England, and exceeding the aver- 
age size of Flemish farms. Even another division of the same 
number of parts might take place, and twenty acres would cor- 
respond with the size of many of the most productiv^e farms in 
Belgium. Many persons, in arguing against such an arrange- 
ment, proceed upon the supposition that the division is to be 
infinitesimal. But this is absurd ; and, as I have already re- 
marked, the evil of too great a subdivision has already a ten- 
dency to correct itself, and to stop where it would become 
positively mischievous. This is found to be the case, as I have 
remarked, in the strictly rural districts. But a person passing 
through the environs of large towns and cities will perceive that 
the division has proceeded very far ; the fields often appear like 
patchwork, and are cut up into very small pieces. This is 
exactly as it should be. These pieces are owned by small gar- 
deners, who supply the markets with fruit or vegetables, and 



SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 383 

who, on account of its limited extent, carry their cultivation to 
a high perfection, and often in the number, variety, and quantity 
of their crops on these small pieces of ground, astonish one by 
their success. Very often these pieces of land are owned by 
persons engaged in severe mechanical trades in the cities, who 
find health and needful recreation in their cultivation. One 
thing is quite certain in such cases — that no land thus situated 
will be left uncultivated ; and under the system of minute econ- 
omy to which it is subjected, will unquestionably be rendered as 
productive as possible. 

If we look at large farms in Great Britain, — I mean farms of 
hundreds of acres, with the exception of some of the best culti- 
vated districts, such as the Lothians in Scotland, for example, or 
the counties of Northumberland, Lincoln, and Norfolk, and only 
some farms in these counties, — we shall find that even these are 
by no means always fully cultivated ; and that, either for want 
of skill, or enterprise, or capital, large portions of them are 
wholly unproductive. This is far less frequently the case with 
small farms, for the simple reason that the owners cannot aff'ord 
to neglect their land, and that the management is much more 
easy. It is to be added likewise, that in very small holdings, of 
six, or ten, or twenty acres, the great expense of a team, and of 
costly implements, is dispensed with. In some parts of England, 
though very rarely, but in many parts of the Continent, and 
especially in Switzerland, the small farmers use their milch-cows 
for work, thus getting a double advantage from them ; and a 
milch-cow, used tenderly, and treated liberally, may be worked 
from four to six hours a day without injury to her milk. This 
saving is a great circumstance. On large arable farms it may be 
calculated, that from a fourth to a third of the produce must be 
counted for the support, and equipments, and cost of the teams. 
The saving of this expense is a great affair ; and this is accom- 
plished on small holdings where cows are kept, which pay the 
expense of their keeping by their labor and their calf; or where, 
as in many cases, the whole cultivation is performed by human 
instead of brute labor — by the spade instead of the plough. I 
believe, therefore, it will be found, that in a fair comparison, the 
small farms are in fact more productive than the large ones ; that 
they are managed at less comparative expense, and, in propor- 
tion, leave more for human consumption. 



384 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

If thus much may be said of the economical resuhs, still more 
may be said of the beneficial moral influences of such a system. 
Of all the influences which operate to promote exertion, indus- 
try, and good conduct, none certainly is more powerful than 
the hope of bettering our condition ; and I may add, without 
undertaking to give a reason for it, as an established truth, that 
nothing inspires more self-respect, as connected with a feeling of 
independence, than the possession of property, and especially the 
possession of a fixed property in house or land. This eff'ect is 
constantly seen in the laboring classes among the French. They 
are extremely ambitious of getting a piece of land ; and perhaps 
too much so, after once coming into possession, of extending 
their possessions. This stimulates them to industry, and induces 
the most rigid economy. The subdivision of property or of 
land in France renders this practicable, which, in other countries, 
where the right of entail prevails, or where property is held in 
large masses, and guarded with extreme jealousy, is out of the 
question. There is a wise foresight likewise, in this matter, in 
respect to the security of public order and the peace of the 
country. The persons of all others least likely to engage in 
projects of revolution certainly are those whose property must in 
every case be endangered by such revolution ; whose possessions 
are fixed, and not transferable from one place to another at pleas- 
ure. Their estates constitute the strongest pledge of their loy- 
alty and patriotism. The more property is divided in a country, 
the more equally it is held, or rather, that it should be attainable 
by all on equal conditions, the greater security is there for the 
rights of property ; the more are concerned in the preservation 
of the public peace. The humblest agricultural laborer in 
France may look forward, by industry, sobriety, and economy, 
to become a proprietor and a holder in fee-simple of some 
portion of the soil which he cultivates. There is, therefore, the 
strongest inducement held out to good conduct ; and the benefi- 
cial influence of this condition of things upon the character of 
the French peasantry cannot be doubted. 

Few things have struck me more forcibly than the diflerence 
in the condition of the agricultural population of France and 
that of Great Britain — a subject to which I have already 
referred. I have never seen a more healthy, a better-clad, or a 
liappier population, than the French peasantry. Something may 



SIZE OF FARMS, AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY, 385 

be ascribed lo their naturally-cheerful temperament, and some- 
thing to that extraordinary sobriety, which every where, in a 
remarkable degree, characterizes the French people ; but much 
more, I think, to the favorable condition in which this law, 
which renders attainable the possession of a freehold in the soil, 
places them. 

I am extremely averse to making any unfavorable comparisons ; 
and I am quite aware that my judgment may be at fault ; but I 
shall offend no candid mind by the calm expression of my honest 
opinion, The very poor condition of a large portion of the 
English agricultural laboring population must be acknowledged. 
The acquisition of property is, in most cases, all but impossible. 
The great difficulty, where there is a family, is to subsist ; in 
sickness they have no resource but private charity or parish 
assistance ; and they have, in most cases, nothing to which they 
can look forward, when the power to labor fails them, but the 
almshouse. 

I believe there is an equal amount of philanthropy, and 
as strong a sense of justice and humanity, among the English, 
as among any people ; but it is not to be expected, in any 
country where wealth constitutes the great and most enviable 
distinction, and where, by various circumstances, avarice is stim- 
ulated to the highest degree, that the great mass of the com- 
munity should be either philanthropic, or humane, or just. 
Wealth is almost every where, in what is called civilized, and 
too often miscalled Christian, life, the great instrument of power. 
Power is a dangerous possession, and always liable to abuse. 
The only security against this abuse is the division of power ; 
and to give the humbler classes the means of helping them- 
selves. 

In Great Britain, as I have already said, the rural laboring 
classes are placed in circumstances of hardship and disadvantage. 
It would be ordinarily quite idle for them to aspire to the owner- 
ship of land. Philanthropic and benevolent persons, in various 
parts of the country, have given them small allotments ; though 
some have endeavored to limit these allotments to one eighth of 
an acre, and many farmers have combined in denouncing the 
allotment system, and have refused to take leases where the 
laborers were to be allowed allotments. The beneficial effects 
of these allotments, both upon the comfort and morals of the 
VOL. II. 33 



3S6 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

laboring classes, have every where been acknowledged ; but 
under the best circumstances, the allotment system can never be 
a substitute for that by which the ownership of the land is itself 
attainable. 

I will not contest the point that great improvements can only 
be expected. to take place on large estates and with the help of 
large capital ; yet, on estates of a medium size, such as a hundred 
or even fifty acres, these are, perhaps, more likely to take place 
than on estates of a much larger size, as being ordinarily more 
within the reach of most men — the majority of farmers being 
men of restricted capital. The immense improvements in diking 
and embankments, and in redeeming land from the sea, which 
have been made in Holland, and in Lincolnshire and Cambridge- 
shire, in England, could only have been effected by the union 
of large bodies of proprietors. No single fortune is any wiiere 
competent to such enterprises. 

I will not deny that under a system of large farms more produce 
may be for sale ; and, in a commercial view, more money will 
be made, and larger fortunes accumulated. But I cannot agree 
that the wealth of a community, held as it ordinarily is held, is 
the standard of its prosperity. That undoubtedly is the happiest 
condition of society, where none are over-rich, and none ex- 
tremely poor ; where one is not continually offended by those 
striking contrasts of enormous wealth and extreme destitution, 
which some countries present. That condition of society is 
undoubtedly above all others to be preferred, where the power of 
bettering our condition is, as far as possible, equally enjoyed by 
every man, and certainly not denied to any one ; and where 
every possible encouragement and facility are given to the exer- 
tion of this power. It is often a great charity to help our neigh- 
bor ; but the best and wisest of all forms, in which this charity 
can be exercised, is that, when a man helps his neighbor to help 
himself. 



MEASURES FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 387 



CXIX.— MEASURES OF THE GOVERNMENT FOR THE 
IMPROVEMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

The measures of the government for the advancement of agii- 
culture have much to recommend them, if they are carried out 
in an iuteUigent and faithful manner. 

1. Department of Agriculture. — In the first place, there 
is a department of agriculture, the secretary or minister of which, 
being one of the first men in the kingdom, is expected to look 
after this great interest ; to obtain statistical returns of agricul- 
tural produce from all parts of the kingdom ; to learn what is the 
condition of the art ; what improvements have been made : what 
improvements are most required ; and what is the condition of 
the agricultural population. 

2. Statistical Returns. — The statistical returns of the 
produce of France have been recently completed, and show a 
work of immense industry and labor. It is obvious that such a 
work can present only an approach to exactness ; but even that 
is of great value ; and it will be found that some facts have been 
brought out, in respect to the average increase of the crops, 
which are in the highest degree encouraging. These returns 
have been obtained by a direct application to well-informed and 
confidential individuals, in different parts of the country, who 
have made their returns to the central bureau in Paris. A great 
variety of subjects have been embraced in them, such as the 
amount of land in cultivation ; the amount of land devoted to 
different crops; the manure applied; the quantity of seed em- 
ployed, and the average yield. It extends, likewise, to the 
number of persons engaged in agriculture, and the number of 
domestic animals reared or kept in every department, with a 
great variety of agricultural and commercial information, sub- 
sidiary to and connected with the subject, of a very interesting 
character, and of equal utility. This magnificent work does the 
highest honor to the government, and to the persons employed 
in its execution. 



388 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

3. Inspectors of Agricultural Districts. — The next 
provision made by the government is the division of the king- 
dom into four agricultural districts, to each of which an intelligent 
and experienced agriculturist is appointed, as inspector or com- 
missioner, whose duty it is to go through his district annually at 
least, observe carefully its condition, and report it to the govern- 
ment ; and at the same time, in his journeyings, communicate 
every where advice and information, as he may see that they are 
needed. This is certainly an admirable mode of dispensing 
knowledge and exciting emulation.* 

4. Importation of Improved Stock. — The government 
likewise have imported from other countries some of the most 
valuable animals, such as bulls and stud-horses ; and stationed 
them in different parts of the country, that the farmers may avail 
themselves of the advantages which they offer for the improve- 
ment of their stock. On account of the large demands made by 
government for horses for the cavalry, this becomes a matter of 
great importance. Whether the keeping of bulls would not be 
better left to private enterprise, is a question much debated. 
That which belongs to the public is seldom cared for like that 
which belongs to an individual ; but the government have met 
this objection by disposing of their improved animals occasionally 
at public sales. 

5. Agricultural and Veterinary Schools. — Prance has 
likewise several agricultural schools, established in different parts 
of the kingdom, of which I shall presently give an account, 
designed to furnish a complete scientific and practical education 
in agriculture. In addition to this, they have veterinary schools, 
where comparative anatomy is thoroughly studied, and the dis- 
eases of all the domestic animals most carefully treated. These 
likewise may be supposed to grow in a great measure out of 
their army, where the medical treatment of their horses is obvi- 
ously of great importance. 

* At one time, several persons were employed by the government to visit 
foreign conntries for the purpose of seeing their improvements, gatlicring agri- 
r iiltural information, and bringing home such plants and seeds as were likely to 
bo useful to the country. It is proposed by the provisional government to revive 
this excellent plan. March, 1848. 



MEASURES FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 389 

6. Agricultural Societies and Show. — In various parts of 
the country agricultural societies are established, and assisted by 
the government, for the purpose of diftusing information ; and 
these will, in all probability, extend themselves. A society in 
Paris, composed of some of the first men in the kingdom, meets 
regularly twice a month for the discussion of agricultural sub- 
jects, for the report of improvements, and, at the end of the 
season, for the bestowal of premiums. An agricultural show 
was undertaken the last year at Poissy, the Smithfield of France, 
where some excellent native, and some very good improved 
stock, though not to a large amount, was exhibited ; and here I 
saw sheep of the very best and most profitable kind, especially for 
such a country as the United States, where good mutton, and 
particularly fine wool, are in demand. These were pm-e Merinos, 
of a very large size, well proportioned and fat, and with fleeces 
of an excellent quality. I have never seen animals of the kind 
combining more valuable properties. It is intended that these 
shows, of which this was a first attempt, should be continued 
annually. 

7. An Agricultural Congress. — Previous to this show, an 
Agricultural Congress, composed of more than 300 gentlemen 
interested in agriculture, and sent as deputies from different parts 
of the country, had been sitting in Paris for a fortnight, to dis- 
cuss practical questions in agriculture, and likewise political 
questions bearing upon it ; which was done with great ability. 
At Poissy, the minister of agriculture distributed premiums of 
large amount ; and every circumstance indicated an active, an 
increased, and increasing attention to this great subject. 

8. Conservatory of Arts and Trades. — Paris is, in the 
next place, distinguished by its direct means of scientific instruc- 
tion. It has what is called a Conservatory of Arts and Trades. 
This is, properly speaking, a school for the industrial and me- 
chanical classes. Here is a complete collection of models or of 
examples of agricultural buildings and implements — to say 
nothing of other arts — not only of those in use in France, but 
specimens of the best of every description which are used in 
foreign countries. Here, under accomplished professors, courses 
of agricultural lectures, or rather of chemistry and mechanics 

33* 



390 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

as applied to agricLilture, are regularly given, to which access is 
entirely gratuitous, the professors being supported by the govern- 
ment ; so that here is presented to inquisitive minds the best 
means of learning the application of science to agriculture. 
Perhaps, in the science which involves the connection of chem- 
istry with agriculture, no country has made so great advances as 
France, as the labors of Chaptal, Boussingault, Payen, and 
other distinguished men decisively show. If agricultural chem- 
istry could make men good farmers, the French should take 
precedence of all others. How far the facts conform to this sup- 
position I shall leave to others to judge ; because I have no wish 
to put my head into the lion's cage ; though I am compelled to 
say, in passing, that the best arable farming which I have evei 
seen, the cleanest, the most exact, apparently also the most pro- 
ductive and economical, is in countries where there is no science, 
technically so called, and implements only, of the most ordinary 
description; I mean Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland. I 
shall take occasion to remark upon this fact in another place. 

9. Society for the Improvement of Wool. — Besides the 
Society of Agriculture, which meets in Paris twice every month, 
and is the centre of the correspondence of all the agricultural 
societies of the country, there is likewise a Society for the Im- 
provement of Wool, which twice a year bestows valuable premi- 
ums upon persons who have made the greatest advances in the 
improvement of the fleeces of their flocks. This society has its 
public exhibitions of wool, and has undoubtedly accomplished 
much good. 



CXX. — PARIS MARKETS. 

1. Corn Market. — Paris concentrates much within itself 
that is extremely interesting to an agriculturist. Its markets 
are in the highest style of convenience, neatness, and abundance. 
The market for the sale of all kinds of grain is a circular stone 
building, two stories in height, and 126 feet in diameter, sur- 
rounded by high galleries for the storage of flour, the unground 



PARIS MARKETS. 391 

grain being in the centre on the floor, and covered in by an iron 
roof of admirable architectural construction. The building is 
completely fire-proof. The grain is always brought to market in 
sacks, and the building, it is said, is capable of containing 10,000 
sacks. There are to be found here wheat, rye, barley, oats, 
buckwheat, beans, peas, lentils, and vetches. Bureaus, or small 
offices, are ranged round the circle on the inside for the factors, 
or salesmen ; and, as in almost every other department of busi- 
ness in France, women are as much employed in the sale of grain 
as men ; and there can be no doubt they manage with admirable 
skill and address. Sharp trading seems often the characteristic 
of the sex ; excepting only where the affections are concerned. 
The Corn Exchange is held here two or three times a week. 

2. Meat Markets. — The meat markets are of the neatest 
possible description ; but they are scattered about in shops. The 
beef in Paris, in point of fatness, is much inferior to the Eng- 
lish ; yet it is of a fair quality. The mutton is likewise very 
inferior to the English. Some persons complain of the English 
beef and mutton, especially the Dishley mutton, as being much 
too fat, and therefore attended with great waste. Veal, in 
France, is not killed until it is full six months old, and is of the 
very finest description. The meat shops in Paris are shut in by 
doors of iron grating, so as to admit a free circulation of air at 
night, with cloths covering the meat to ward off" the dust ; and 
they are visited every morning by the police, and undergo a 
strict examination, so that, if there is any meat of a bad descrip- 
tion, or which has remained on hand too long, it is at once con- 
demned and seized. The butchers in Paris are licensed, and laid 
under heavy bonds to conform to the police regulations ; and the 
meats and other articles brought into Paris are subject to a duty, 
collected at the barriers, which goes towards the improvements 
of the city. 

3. Markets for Eggs, Butter, Cheese, Vegetables, Fruits, 
Poultry, Fish, &c. — The market of the Innocents,* as it is 
called, is one of the largest in Paris. This market is to undergo 
great alterations, and a very large sum is in reserve to build it 

* Being the site of an old convent or nunnery. 



392 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

upon the most extensive and magnificent plan. This market 
comprises not only the great fish market of Paris, but also the 
egg market, the butter and cheese markets, the potato market; 
the onion market, and the general vegetable and fruit markets. 
The sellers, with scarcely an exception, are women, very sharp, 
very busy, and of course very talkative. Looking down upon 
the whole area from the magnificent fountain in the centre, it 
would be diflicult to find a more gay and animated scene. The 
fountains in Paris are one of its most remarkable features ; and 
no principal market is to be found without its continually-flow- 
ing fountain. 

The vegetables, butter, eggs, fish, and many other things, are 
always disposed of at auction early in the morning to the retail 
dealers. The vegetables in Paris are excellent. Carrots, and 
turnips, and onions, are not so large as in England and the mar- 
kets of the United States, because the French deem the large- 
sized vegetables not so good for eating as the smaller-sized. It 
is remarkable, likewise, that there is hardly any season of the year 
when almost any description of vegetables may not be found in 
the markets of Paris ; and in the middle of December, green peas, 
asparagus, string beans, and strawberries, may be purchased in 
quantities, which shows the perfection to which the art of gar- 
dening is carried among them. 

The fruits exposed in the markets of Paris are of a superior 
quality, pears especially, for which the French have long been 
celebrated. The St. Michael and the St. Germaine pears, which, 
in the United States, have almost wholly failed, from having, as 
has been supposed, completed their period, are here still in per- 
fection, which would seem to contradict this theory, and leave 
some other cause to be discovered for the extraordinary failure 
of these excellent fruits. I have not been able to ascertain any 
thing in respect to the culture of any of these articles, which is 
not familiarly known to all cultivators. 

4. Market tor Forage. — I have spoken of the grain market 
in Paris ; it has likewise its hay and forage markets, where ex- 
tensive sheds for protection against the weather are furnished. 
These articles, as in England, are sold in small bundles of a 
fixed weight. I shall, perhaps, surprise some of my American 
readers if I inform them, that hay, in small packets or bundles, 



PARIS MARKETS. 



393 



is often sold in Paris at the groceries. I refer to this fact for an 
opportunity of making a remark, which, hereafter, if it has not 
now, will have some importance in the United States ; and that 
is, that where hay, for example, is bought in such small quanti- 
ties, it is likely to be expended with an extreme economy. No 
observing American comes from the United States to Europe, 
without soon becoming convinced, that economy of living is no- 
where so little understood as in his own country ; and that for 
nothing are the Americans more distinguished, than for a reckless 
waste of the means of subsistence. The refuse of many a family 
in the United States, even in moderate circumstances, would 
often support in comfort a poor family in Europe. When persons 
buy tea by the ounce, and wood by the pound, and hay by the 
handful, it is quite obvious that these articles will be expended 
with far more frugality, than where the store is less limited and 
seems inexhaustible. While meanness is contemptible, a rigid 
economy, avoiding all waste, is a great virtue. The inhabitants 
of the United States enjoy an abundance for which they cannot 
be too grateful ; but which is very little understood in Europe, 
where, with a large portion of the population, including many 
in the middle condition of life, it is a constant struggle to live, 
and to bring even their necessary expenditure within their 
restricted means ; and where the constant inquiry is, not what 
they want, but what can they afford, — not what they will have, 
but what can they do without. 

5. Horse Market. — Paris, besides its grain and cattle mar- 
kets, has likewise, weekly, its horse market, for the sale of 
horses, mules, and asses, where immense numbers of every 
description are brought, and change hands ; and where the 
morality is probably upon a par with that of the trade in horses 
in other parts of the world, of the green-spectacle character, as 
exemplified in the Vicar of Wakefield. 

6. Flower Markets. — The flower markets are another 
extraordinary feature in Paris. These are held at all seasons of 
the year, in three different parts of the city, twice a week, and 
in the most favorable season comprise a collection of flowers and 
plants as beautiful as the climate admits of. It is stated on good 
authority, that occasionally there are exposed in a day, in Paris, 



394 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

for sale in these different markets, not less than 30,000 pots of 
flowers, the value of which is estimated at full 9000 dollars, or 
£1800 sterling. With the strict notions of utility entertained by- 
some persons, such facts may seem scarcely compatible ; but, if 
we may judge that to be useful, which gives us a pure and per- 
fectly innocent pleasure, certainly there is no luxury whatever 
which should be looked upon with more favor. There are dis- 
tinct markets, held likewise at proper seasons, for the sale of 
trees, ornamental and fruit-trees, and flowering shrubs and plants, 
presenting an extraordinary and beautiful variety. 



CXXI.— THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. — BOTANY. 

Perhaps I have already said, in other places, as much as my 
readers will bear, with patience, of the cultivation of flowers. 
Yet I must crave a further indulgence. I must urge it on 
grounds of utility, on grounds of taste, and, above all, on moral 
grounds. My words will reach many dwellers in the country, 
who, amidst their daily severe labors and toils, are sighing for 
some relaxation, and some refreshment of the soul. They want 
something which shall relieve the dull monotony of their daily 
toil ; something which shall interest their cares, their thoughts, 
their imaginations, I will add, their affections. They require 
that which, so far from wasting, shall invigorate their strengtii. 
They require a pleasure which shall be inexpensive, and easily 
attainable, and innocent, and wiiich, enjoyed to its utmost extent, 
so far from satiating and exhausting either the body or mind, 
shall not weary the former, and shall enlarge, recreate, and ele- 
vate the latter, and fill it with the purest delight. All this is at 
hand in the cultivation of flowers. The taste which leads to it 
is among the most pure and the most innocent which can be 
indulged, and where it does not interfere with imperative duties, 
is unexceptionable. 

I cannot say that, as a science for study, botany is ordinarily 
presented in a form interesting to general readers. The general 
classification of plants, and the scientific distinctions which are 



THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 395 

made between them; the physiology of plants, so far as it is 
understood, which admits us at once into some of the most won- 
derful and beautiful secrets of nature ; the different modes of 
culture which different plants require ; their peculiar adaptation 
to various soils and climates, so strikingly as it displays the 
benevolent adaptations in the works of a wise and omniscient 
Providence ; the acclimation of different plants, and the curious 
changes which, under such acclimation, they undergo, and by 
which, like many animals, they are brought from a savage into 
a domesticated state ; the presence of certain plants in certain 
localities, found nowhere else, and where their presence would 
seem indispensable to render such places habitable to human 
beings ; the economical uses of different plants for food, for cloth- 
ing, for building, for mechanical purposes, for naval purposes, for 
fuel, for coloring, for light ; the medical uses of different plants, 
so extensive as it is found to be in every pharmacopoeia ; the 
infinite variety of fruits, not for subsistence merely, but for lux- 
ury ; the uses of plants in the fine arts, for imitation, for adorn- 
ment, and for taste ; the chemical qualities or properties of plants 
in their particular uses, and in their general influences upon the 
atmosphere which we breathe, in the gases which they take in, 
and those which they exhale : the control and influence which 
human sagacity and power have been able to exert over the vege- 
table world in acclimating plants, in propagating them, in fruc- 
tifying and engrafting, and changing the different species ; — all 
these matters, directly involved in the science of botany, render 
it one of the most interesting of studies ; and, even in its present 
imperfect state, it is the business of years to master it. The 
extensive discoveries, likewise, which have been made of fossil 
plants, in particular geological formations, which, as compared 
with present existing species, lead to so many curious inductions 
in regard to the past condition of the earth, open to the mind 
many interesting subjects of inquiry. It is as obvious, likewise, 
that the establishment of a common scientific and technical lan- 
guage, by which the description of a plant, wherever found, shall 
be every where understood, and the plant, when met with, recog- 
nized, is of the highest importance. But botany, as it is com- 
monly taught in schools, and as it appears in botanical works in 
general use, seems little else than a vocabulary of arbitrary and 
technical terms, in a language not generally understood, creates 



396 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 



usually but little interest, and is of little practical utility. Within 
my limited knowledge, the botanical work is yet to be written, 
which shall present the subject in that natural, plain, instructive, 
familiar, comprehensive, elevated, — I hope I may add, without 
offence to science, — popular form, which would give to rural 
pursuits and recreations, and to the culture of ornamental as well 
as of useful plants, an interest, a utility, a delight, even to humble 
minds imperfectly educated, infinitely beyond what they are now 
found to have with many persons, in other respects of cultivated 
taste and enlarged knowledge. 

But, putting aside this view of the subject, in which it cannot 
be expected that the study of botany should become general or 
even frequent, the simple cultivation of flowers, without any skill 
or knowledge in technical botany, can scarcely be too strongly 
enjoined upon the dwellers in the country. While I would urge 
it upon the wealthy proprietor, if there were occasion for it, I 
would with still more earnestness press it upon the small farmer, 
and even upon the cottager and the laborer, who, in the United 
States, if he will, may always have his house and his garden, 
humble as they may be, and, I may add, his acres, to devote, as 
he chooses, to purposes of utility and recreation. 

No farmer, in my opinion, should be without his fruit and 
vegetable garden, to which he should be able to look for a large 
portion of the daily supplies of his table ; for profit, as matter 
of economy, for health, comfort, and luxury ; and a part of this, 
or a portion additional, should be devoted to the cultivation of 
flowers and plants for ornament. I do not mean that the great 
labors of a farm should be intermitted for the care of the gar- 
den, as some persons profess to fear that in such case it would 
be ; but they may ordinarily go hand in hand together, and the 
one serve in truth to advance the other, France is not without 
such beautiful examples. On every well-regulated farm there 
should be hours of recreation, when at least the most severe and 
harassing labors of the farm should be for a while relaxed, I 
know that there are seasons of the year when such a remission 
could hardly be expected. But there are seasons when there is 
ample leisure ; and in almost every household, and on almost 
every farm, there are what may be called supernumerary hands, 
women and children, to whom such cares would always be a 
welcome occupation and a healthful pastime. 



THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. — BOTANY. 397 

On grounds even of interest, a proprietor may find, upon con- 
sideration, that he is essentially a gainer by every thing which 
improves the appearance of, or serves to embellish, his estate. 
This may be a small matter in England, where estates are held 
to keep ; but it is worthy of much reflection in the United 
States, where almost all estates seem to be held to sell. There 
may be most expensive embellishments, which should never be 
undertaken without being maturely considered ; there may be 
embellishments in very bad taste, against which it would be 
difficult to prescribe any other remedy than that which improved 
education brings with it ; there may be embellishments of a 
costly yet of a perishable nature, which certainly are not to be 
chosen ; but embellishments planned in good taste, corresponding 
with the general character and uses of the property, greatly im- 
prove the value of an estate, far beyond their cost. Shade trees, 
ornamental and flowering shrubs, are always easily attainable, 
and may be considered as permanent improvements, which give 
a real and durable value to an estate. 

In speaking thus on this subject, among the great variety of 
tastes which I may be expected to encounter, I know there are 
many to whom I cannot look for sympathy. They, I hope, will 
at once turn these pages over, and leave them for persons who 
take an interest in these subjects. These rural embellishments 
are common in Europe ; but they are not appreciated, or, if ap- 
preciated, they are not yet so general as they should be in the 
United States. I wish they might be universal. 

1. The Floral Magnificence of EngLxVND. — In England, 
they prevail every where, and render the country extremely 
beautiful. There is not a country-house without its shade trees, 
its ornamental hedge-rows, its shrubby avenues, its parterres of 
flowers, its trellises of vines of the most beautiful description ; 
sometimes covering all the sides and the roofs of the houses with 
their thick matting of foliage, suspending their rich tresses over 
every door-way, climbing every corner, peeping into every win- 
dow, and covering it with their graceful drapery as a curtain, 
and hanging, in thick masses of green and gold, intermingled 
often with flowers and fruit of the most exquisite richness and 
beauty, from the edges of the roof, and from every angle and 
projection, where they can fix their grasp. I have seen nothing 
VOL. II. 34 



398 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

to surpass the admirable and charming diversity, and beauty, 
and richness, of these embellishments as I have found them all 
over England ; not unfrequently at the residences of the lower 
classes, as well as those of the rich and noble. I have found 
often the humble cottage of the humblest laborer adorned with 
vines of unsurpassed luxuriance ; the sweetbrier exhaling its 
delicious odor under the windows, and roses, and geraniums, and 
syringas, and dahlias, disputing your passage to the door. These 
are the petted children of his industrious wife and daughters ; 
and he looks at them with honest pride, and drinks in their odors 
with the sweeter relish, because they are trained by hands which 
disdain no useful labor, and can be enjoyed in all their fragrance 
and beauty without giving pain to a single human being. Bet- 
ter than all this, they are to every passing observer the outward 
and infallible indications of the industry, frugality, neatness, and 
good economy, which reign within. 

Wherever circumstances admit of it, every considerable coun- 
try-house in England has likewise its conservatory, in which, at 
least, the female part of the household shelter those objects of 
their care, which are too tender to bear exposure ; and find recre- 
ation and keep alive the remembrance of the summer's glories 
and magnificence, when winter utters his hoarse voice without 
doors, and commands all that has life to retire before his sweep- 
ing and icy blast. 

2. The Flower Gardens of Paris. — The Garden of 
Plants. — Paris is not only distinguished for its beautiful flower 
markets, but for its beautiful flower gardens, which may be said 
to be almost unrivalled. The Garden of Plants, so called, in 
Paris, in extent, in number and variety of plants, in scientific 
and instructive arrangement, in the perfect condition in which it 
is kept, and in the extent of its conservatories, is probably un- 
equalled. It is not only completely adapted to botanical instruc- 
tion, but likewise to public recreation, combining with these 
objects as perfect a Flora as science and taste, aided by the 
ready patronage of the government, have been able to collect 
and maintain. The most useful as well as the most ornamental 
plants may here be found and studied in all their aspects and 
varieties, and in all their habits and uses. 



THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 399 

3. The Gardens of the Palaces. — There are magnificent 
flower gardens likewise connected with the national buildings or 
palaces in Paris and its vicinity, which, with a liberality that 
eminently characterizes the French in all their public establish- 
ments, are open to the public for study, for pleasure, and for 
recreation ; and in pleasant weather are crowded with persons 
who appreciate and enjoy them. In most of these gardens, the 
scientific as well as the familiar name is attached to the plant, 
together with the class to which it belongs, and the country of 
which it is a native. The gardens attached to the palaces of 
Versailles and St. Cloud, and more distant at Fontainbleau, are 
among the great sights of France. They exhibit the most splen- 
did triumphs of genius, skill, and taste, in rendering, as far as 
these can do it, the beauties of nature even more beautiful, the 
magnificence of nature even more magnificent; and seem, in 
their shady avenues and their green lawns, their superb trees 
and their flowers of superlative beauty, in their statues exhibiting 
the triumphs of the sculptor's art, — an art all but divine; and 
in their splendid fountains, combining, with the most extraordi- 
nary brilliancy, what is most exquisite in design and graceful in 
motion, to rival, if -not to surpass, the splendid and poetical 
descriptions of the golden age. 

4. Rural ExMbellishments in France, Holland, Belgium, 
Germany, and Italy. — The country in France is very far from 
being as picturesque and beautiful as that of a great part of Eng- 
land. The deep verdure of England, owing to .the constant 
humidity of its climate, and somewhat to the character of its 
soil, which is adapted to retain the moisture, is not to be looked 
for in France, where the soil is to a great extent calcareous, and 
where the droughts of summer are often long and severe. I 
have already remarked likewise that the villages in France wear 
by no means a rural aspect. But France is not without its beau- 
tiful country-houses and villas, presenting often, in their con- 
struction and adornment, examples of almost unsurpassed taste ; 
and none of them without the charming embellishments of parks 
and gardens, lawns and fountains, shrubs and flowers. Some of 
the best farms which I have visited, farms of several hundred 
acres in extent, have not been without some of these delightful 
appendages. 



400 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

In passing through Holland, among persons whom we are 
sometimes pleased to call the stupid Dutchmen — and, in my 
opinion, there was never a greater misnomer, as I shall presently 
show — one is charmed with the multitude of residences, orna- 
mented in the highest degree with shrubs, and vines, and flowers 
of extreme beauty and luxuriance. At Brussels, at Leyden, at 
Utrecht, are botanical gardens, supported by public munificence, 
of great extent, and where no pains are spared to carry the cul- 
ture of plants to the highest degree of perfection. At Antwerp, 
and at the Hague, there are public promenades, and gardens, and 
parks, laid out with trees, and shrubs, and flowers, with taste and 
liberality, kept in the neatest manner, and open constantly to the 
recreation and enjoyment of the public. 

The environs of Frankfort on the Rhine may be pronounced 
a region of perfect enchantment. The whole city, certainly one 
of the cleanest and handsomest which I have seen, is surrounded 
by a wide belt of large extent, and furnishing not only man)" 
walks, but drives for several carriages abreast, of trees and flower- 
ing shrubs, and flowering plants of the greatest variety, combin- 
ing the richness and glory of the vegetable world as far as the 
climate admits of it. This charming promenade is open always 
freely to the public for health, recreation, and delight. The 
public, thu^ freely admitted, never dream of defacing a statue, or 
disturbing a fountain, of breaking a shrub, or plucking a flower. 
Indeed, I can almost believe, that the richest fruit might hang 
there untouched — such is the sentiment of propriety in which 
these people have been trained, and the conviction deeply im- 
pressed upon their minds, that what is intended for the common 
and unrestricted enjoyment of all, should be protected by com- 
mon consent. In Milan, and Turin, and Florence, and all the 
principal cities of continental Europe, as far as I have seen, the 
same taste for rural embellishments prevails, and the same lib- 
erality in opening these grounds and gardens to the free enjoy- 
ment of all. In the neighborhood of Rome, a prince,* one of 
the rich men of the sovereignty, gives up his whole villa, com- 
prising a large extent of the most richly ornamented and embel- 
lished grounds, to the free enjoyment of the public. 

In England, with the exception of the magnificent parks of 

* Prince Borsrhese. 



THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 401 

London, which, for their extent, and in some parts for their 
beauty, can scarcely be too much admired, these places are not 
open to the public. The splendid exhibitions of the botanical 
societies can be shared only at an expense quite beyond the 
means of the great mass of the community ; and are thus arranged 
with an evident intention to exclude them. If the acquisition 
of money for the payment of premiums, to encourage emulation, 
be the object, this object would not be defeated by admitting 
the public on succeeding days, or on other occasions, freely or for 
a small fee. The squares in London, full as they are of beauti- 
ful shrubs and flowers, are nevertheless all kept under lock and 
key, and the public are wholly excluded. I must except from 
these remarks the magnificent grounds of the Duke of Devon- 
shire at Chatsworth, to which access is free ; the Arboretum at 
Derby, of which I have spoken in another place, and which the 
liberality of a spirited merchant has expressly consecrated to 
public use ; the Royal Gardens at Kew, and the charming 
grounds at Hampton Court, near London, which are open to the 
public under proper restrictions. There may be many others, 
which have not come within my knowledge. A spirit is evi- 
dently growing up in England, which will presently show itself 
in the most ample provision for the gratification of the masses. 
This great people are not wanting in philanthropy ; and though 
highly conservative in all their arrangements, and phlegmatic 
and slow in coming to their convictions, are sure to follow them, 
when they are once determined. 

I am aware that most of these squares are private property ; 
but it would be a noble charity, small to those who give, but 
great to those who receive it, to allow the poorer classes to enjoy 
them, at least at fixed times, and under proper restrictions. The 
admirable police of London would easily guard against any irreg- 
ularity or nuisance ; and, indeed, where people are accustomed 
to such indulgences, no person thinks of committing a trespass. 
I believe the English people have as high a sense of honor and 
justice as any people living, where confidence is reposed in them. 
It is for want of this confidence that persons are often led to do 
wrong. No better use can be made of wealth than to multiply 
the rational and innocent pleasures of the poorer classes, to im- 
prove their taste, and to elevate their characters. A philanthropic 
mind can find no higher gratification than in giving pleasure to 
34* 



402 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Others ; and the indications of the times strongly show that this 
use of wealth is becoming as necessary to its security as it is 
conducive to its true enjoyment. 

I must add again, that the parks of London, including Ken- 
sington Gardens, for extent and beauty, are nowhere surpassed ; 
and the neatness and order in which the grounds and walks are 
kept, is, in the highest degree, exemplary. The government 
likewise have opened a new park of large extent, Victoria Park, 
in a part of London where the poorest inhabitants reside, for 
their health and recreation, and are fast progressing in its em- 
bellishment and improvement. They have other plans for pro- 
viding public grounds for the inhabitants, which are as creditable 
to the liberal views of the government, as they are serviceable 
to the health, and, I will add, to the moral improvement of the 
population. 

But what are we to say in the United States, where, in a 
country in which the rapid acquisitions of wealth almost realize 
the fables of romance, and where old cities are becoming crowded, 
and cities and towns are fast multiplying, to be filled with the 
children of industry and toil, there is very little or no provision 
of this kind for the public health and recreation, or for the im- 
provement of the public taste and education by ornamental and 
embellished gardens and grounds ? This seems to me a cardinal 
omission ; and it is not a little humiliating, that while, under 
monarchical and despotic governments, the most liberal provision 
is made for these objects, and the freest liberty accorded, yet in 
a republican country, where the people have all the power in 
their own hands, they will do nothing for themselves. It re- 
quires no great sagacity to foresee, that, with our rapidly increas- 
ing population, this improvidence — to use no stronger term — will 
be to be deeply deplored, and when those who come after us 
will learn how much more easy it would have been to prevent 
than to cure an evil or supply an omission. 

This subject is one of great importance, and especially in a 
country where institutions are in the progress of formation, 
which are to affect the destinies of unborn millions ; and where 
no childish and slavish reverence for antiquity prevents the 
most independent inquiry into what is just, what is expedient, 
and what is useful. Too much pains cannot be taken, too 
much attention cannot be given, and scarcely too much expense 



THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 403 

incurred, in providing rational and wholesome pleasures and rec- 
reations for the poorer, and especially the laboring, classes of the 
community. The rich can always find for themselves the 
means of pleasure and enjoyment. If they do not exist near 
home, they can seek them abroad ; and they are often so crowded 
and surfeited with them, that enjoyment itself becomes almost a 
toil. It is wholly different with the poor and the laboring 
classes. They are ordinarily fixed in their residence, and have 
little power of locomotion ; their lives are commonly passed in 
almost unceasing labor; their residences in general, in cities, are 
in the compact and most crowded quarters, where ventilation is 
imperfect, and where the cheerful and invigorating light of the 
sun is often shut out, and where, consequently, strength is more 
rapidly exhausted ; diseases are engendered ; the comfort of liv- 
ing is not known ; life itself is abridged ; the decencies of 
life are forgotten or trampled upon ; moral disease and crime 
follow in the rear of physical suffering and privation ; and a 
gangrene appears upon the social body, spreading through all 
the circulations its disastrous influences. Every effort should be 
made, and all pains should be taken, that these labors may be 
relaxed ; and that some innocent and wholesome recreation 
should be provided for these children of severe and almost un- 
ceasing toil. Public gardens, and shaded and ornamental grounds, 
should be established, and every effort be made to render them 
accessible and attractive. These people are almost in danger of 
forgetting that there are green fields, and blue skies, and trees 
which offer a refreshing shade, and flowers which combine the 
most delicious perfumes with the richest beauties of form and 
coloring, and warm suns, and glittering stars, and floating 
clouds of every form and hue, which, in their expansive folds, 
and in their brilliant and gorgeous coloring, seem the fit emblems 
of that abyss of glory, where the Divine Majesty has fixed his 
throne, and into which human presumption has not dared to 
penetrate. I would do all that can be done to bring these peo- 
ple "out of darkness into this marvellous light." 

The recreations of the laboring and poorer classes, especially 
in cities, are generally of the lowest character. This is particu- 
larly the case in England, where large numbers of the laboring 
population, either in the town or its neighborhood, give them- 
selves up to gross excess. In many of the mechanical trades, 



404 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the workmen, who are usually paid off on Saturday night, do 
not return to their employment until Tuesday morning, — with 
their senses stupefied, and, usually, their earnings expended, and 
their families unprovided with bread. From what I have been 
able to observe, it is different in France. The public grounds 
and gardens, of the most beautiful description, are thrown open 
to the public, and, especially on Sunday afternoons, are crowded 
with well-dressed men, women, and children. At Versailles, at 
St. Cloud, in the Champs Elysees, and the Garden of Plants, the 
Garden of the Tuileries, and of the Luxembourg, where not only 
these beautiful grounds, but the public galleries and palaces, are also 
open, I have seen several times, on a Sunday, thousands, tens of 
thousands, twenties of thousands, enjoying tlie walks, the flowers, 
the lawns, the shades, the fountains, the statues, the paintings, the 
most beautiful productions of ancient and of modern art. Here 
are persons of every grade in society, and thousands of blooming 
and happy children and young persons ; but not a flower is 
ever plucked, not a twig broken, not a statue defaced, simply 
because every thing is put under the protection of their honor. 
Here is not the slightest irregularity or want of perfectly good 
manners any where apparent ; no crowding, no shouting, no loud 
talking, no swearing, no drinking, and no drunkenness ; and the 
people at the close of the day retire quietly to their own homes, 
or mingle in the evening in some innocent festivity. This has 
always given me unaffected pleasure, and I do not know how, 
by these people, the Sunday afternoon can be more rationally spent. 
It is obvious what a gain there must be to public morals, 
whenever we can draw men from pleasures of a low and purely 
sensual character, ruinous alike to health and morals, and utterly 
destructive of all self-respect, and give them a taste for pleasures 
of a purer, and, I may add, a spiritual and intellectual character. 
The pure and simple love of nature, so liable to become extinct 
amidst the harassing cares, and labors, and frivolities, and sensual 
indulgences of city life, is among the most wholesome senti- 
ments which the mind can cherish. The love of the beautiful, 
of the curious, of the grand and sublime in nature, can never 
become injuriously excessive ; and as it is, in its own character, 
perfectly innocent, so we have reason to thank the Great Author 
of nature, that its resources, and the field of its application, are 
absolutclv unbounded and inexhaustible. 



THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 405 

For my own part, I look upon all these establishments as one 
great branch of public education. Men are not instructed merely 
by books and masters, by schools and set lessons, but by every 
thing which meets the eye and the ear, and especially all which 
meets the eye and the ear directly, without the intervention of 
any other agent. Few persons, in even the humblest condition 
of life, can range through a fine and extensive botanical garden, 
or through a museum of natural history in any of its forms, 
without gathering much useful instruction ; but especially with- 
out having their curiosity excited, some thirst for knowledge 
awakened and stimulated. This being once put upon the scent, 
will often pursue the chase with interest and pleasure, and as 
often with eminent success. What is more gratifying to our 
self-love than any triumph in such case ? and what pleasure is 
more innocent, more pure, and more intense oftentimes, than the 
pleasure, under such circumstances, of acquiring knowledge ? 
Compare with such gratifications the purely sensual pleasiu'es and 
low indulgences which engage a large portion of mankind, how 
infinitely do they transcend them ! The one transient and per- 
ishable, always stimulating to excess, and that excess always 
pernicious, exhausting to the animal vigor, ruinous to health, and 
but too often the blighting, the degradation, and the ruin of the 
whole mind. Not so with the pleasures of refined taste, of intel- 
I'ectual progress and attainment. The more knowledge is ac- 
quired, the more the capacity and facilities of knowledge are 
increased. The more the mind is exercised, the stronger it 
becomes. The more the taste for intellectual pleasures is culti- 
vated, the less likely is man to become the slave of his lower 
appetites and passions. Then, what a great gain will it always 
prove to the laboring classes, if labor can be something more 
than mere mechanical drudgery and toil ! AVhat a gain it nuist 
be, if, in the midst of almost unremitted labor, requiring only a 
mechanical dexterity, which practice soon renders easy, there are 
resources within to alleviate this monotony of toil, or rather to 
make us less sensible to it ; and if, in the intervals of labor, the 
mind finds means of recreation, intellectual, alluring, delightful 
recreation, which draw it away from all painful reflections upon 
what most persons will consider the hardships of a life of con- 
stant toil! 

I am most anxious that in cities and in the country much 



406 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

should be done — indeed, that every thing should be done which 
can be done — to educate and so to elevate the laboring classes. 
I want that they should be treated, not as too often they are 
treated, as mere animals and machines, to be used and applied as 
we have the power and inclination to use and apply them ; but 
as beings who have minds as well as bodies — minds destined 
to be immortal ; and who should be rendered capable of self- 
direction. I cannot think that their duty would he less faith- 
fully, because it would be more intelligently, performed. What- 
ever benefits the humbler classes must essentially benefit those 
above them. In agriculture we have learnt one great and 
important lesson, which seems destined to confer the greatest 
benefits upon the art, that when, as in subsoiling, the lower 
strata are loosened, their superabundant moisture drained off, 
and the air admitted, they become prepared to be mingled with 
the surface soil ; and thus the whole is enriched, and its produc- 
tiveness greatly increased : so in society, just in proportion as 
the humbler classes are educated, improved, and elevated, the 
whole mass of society is enriched and benefited. 



CXXII. — ABATTOIRS, OR SLAUGHTERING HOUSES. 

There are other establishments in Paris which are intimately 
connected with agriculture ; and among these the abattoirs, or 
great slaughtering houses, deserve to be considered. There are 
at least five of these large slaughtering establishments for cattle 
in Paris, just at the barriers of the city. No cattle are allowed 
to be driven through the streets of Paris, unless it be very late at 
night, when the streets are empty; and no person is allowed, 
under any circumstances, to slaughter cattle in the city. These 
abattoirs are enclosed by high stone walls, excepting at the 
entrance, where there is a handsome iron paling ; and the space 
covered by each of them embraces some acres. These are mag- 
nificent establishments. The enclosure of one of them, for 
example, — and they are all built upon the same model, though not 
all of equal size, — is 615 feet in one direction, and 570 in the 



ABATTOIRS, OR SLAUGHTERING HOUSES. 407 

Other. I shall take the liberty here of borrowing a detailed 
account of the arrangement of one of them which I have repeat- 
edly visited. In front of it is a small promenade planted with 
ornamental trees ; and the enclosure contains twenty-three piles 
of building. At the entrance are two pavilions containing the 
offices of those persons who have the management of the estab- 
lishment. To the right and left of the central court, 438 feet in 
length by 291 in breadth, are four immense slaughter houses, 
separated by a road crossing the enclosure ; they are each 141 
feet long by 96 broad, and include respectively a flagged court, 
on each side of which are eight slaughter houses for the use of 
the butchers, by whom the keys are kept. Each slaughter house 
is lighted and ventilated from arcades in the front walls. Above 
are spacious attics for drying the skins and preparing the tallow : 
and, to preserve coolness, a considerable projection is given to 
the roofs. Behind these slaughter houses are two ranges of sheds 
containing sheep-pens, and at the extremities are stables for about 
400 oxen. Each of these buildings contains a loft for forage. 
These masses of building form the sides of the court. At the 
end is a commodious watering-place and pens for cattle and 
sheep, besides two detached buildings, each traversed by a broad 
corridor which communicates with four melting houses, below 
which are cellars containing coolers. Beyond these, parallel with 
the outer wall, are two buildings raised on cellars, in which the 
skins are kept, and near them, in front of the entrance, is a double 
reservoir for water, 228 feet in length, built in solid masonry, 
and resting on arches, which form stands for carts. There is 
also a Triperie, or building for washing and boiling tripe and 
calves' feet. 

Cattle and sheep, on coming to Paris, are immediately driven 
to one of the abattoirs, and there kept at the cost of the butcher. 
The meat is taken to the shops in the city during the night. 
The slaughtering at one of the abattoirs, for example, may be 
estimated at a weekly average of 400 oxen, 300 cows, 600 calv^es, 
and 2000 sheep. The establishment is superintended by a res- 
ident inspector of police, and gives employment, independently 
of the butchers and their servants, to eighteen individuals with 
their families. Houses for the residence of the workmen and 
managers are within the court-yard, with handsome grass-plats, 
trees, and a fountain in the centre. This description gives, how- 



408 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ever, a ver^'' imperfect idea of these truly grand, convenient, and 
useful establishments. The buildings are all of stone, with roofs 
of brick-tile upon iron rafters, so as to be completely fire-proof ; 
and the neatness is such that, excepting in the boiling houses, 
one is not in the smallest degree oftended by any noisome odor. 
Every part of the animal is taken care of and turned to some 
use, and there is no waste of any kind whatever. The blood 
and waste manure are all received into cisterns, to be applied to 
some useful purpose ; and an abundance of water, always at com- 
mand, enables them to keep the slaughtering places, which are 
neatly paved with flagging-stone, entirely clean. The whole is 
under the immediate direction of the city government ; and there 
are so many checks, that there is scarcely a chance, as there is 
no motive, for fraud. The salesman finds his animals slaughtered 
in the neatest manner, and the proper returns accurately made. 
Such establishments are most important in their bearing upon 
public health ; and I should most truly rejoice to see them taking 
the place of those private establishments in the neighborhood of 
our large cities, and in England in the large cities themselves, 
which are odious in all their relations, and which often poison 
the atmosphere to a great extent. The public inspection of the 
establishment by disinterested parties prevents the sale of dis- 
eased meats, which there cannot be a doubt is carried to a great 
extent, and with perfect recklessness, in many private establish- 
ments in some countries, where they are secure from observation. 
Such establishments as these abattoirs would be greatly for the 
satisfaction, if not the advantage, of the farmers of the United 
States, who, driving or sending their cattle to the market, must 
now, in most cases, resign them to the purchaser ; and, without 
any opportunity of seeing them either slaughtered or weighed, 
must rely upon his honesty for a true return of the weight — a 
reliance not always of the surest kind. 

It is curious to remark, in connection with this subject, the 
slow progress of improvement, and the obstinacy with which 
persons adhere to old customs and usages, however objectionable. 
The abattoirs of Paris have now been established more than 
thirty years; and yet London, perfectly aware of their eminent 
advantages, and so distinguished for its social improvements, and 
claiming a monopoly of what are called the comforts of life, sub- 
mits to the terrible nuisance of a crowded cattle market in the 



ABATTOIRS, OR SLAUGHTERING HOUSES. 409 

midst of its thickest population, to and from which cattle are 
driven at all times of day and night, to the great terror, and often 
at the peril of life and limb, of the passengers. Slaughter houses 
are to be found in all parts of the city, even the most fashionable, 
into which cattle are driven directly through the front doors and 
passages of handsome residences ; the Newgate market is com- 
pletely underlaid with subterranean slaughter houses of an odious 
description ; the blood, and much of the animal refuse, so valua- 
ble in an agricultural point of view, passes into the common 
sewer, .either to check the current and produce disease, or it goes 
on with other filth to poison the waters of the Thames : and in 
one of the largest and most populous streets in London, for some 
distance the sidewalk is lined with slaughter houses, where the 
killing of the animals is open to every passer-by, and where the 
very gutters, as I have often seen them, are red with blood. 
The London markets have very imperfect protection against the 
sale of diseased meats ; and diseased animals in Smithfield meet 
with a quick disposal at a lower price to persons who in various 
forms disguise the meat, and impose it upon the humbler classes. 
Indeed, in all that concerns the cleanness, the preparation, and 
the economy of human food, and the preeminent neatness of 
those who sell, as much as of the articles which they sell, the 
French — I speak particularly of the Parisians — are, within my 
knowledge, excepting only the markets of Philadelphia, without 
a rival. They are, indeed, scarcely approached. No part of the 
animal is lost ; every part which is capable of being converted 
into human food, is prepared for use ; and even the cold meats, 
the fragments and remnants of the table, which are sold in the 
markets to the poor, are always presented in a clean and inoffen- 
sive manner.* 

Besides these establishments for the slaughtering of cattle and 



* The Londoners, it seems, are just waking up to the utility and importance 
of establishing abattoirs in the neighborhood of the city; thougli, strange to say, 
they have suffered an admirable establishment of this kind at Islington, conve- 
niently situated and excellently arranged, to lie useless and to go to decay. 

Since the above was written, a project for the removal of the Smithfield mar- 
ket has been defeated, and a public dinner been held to celebrate tlie triumph 
of the successful party. It ought to have been given in one of the subterranean 
slaughter houses of Newgate market 
VOL. II. 35 



410 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

sheep, there are abattoirs for the slaughtering of swine, distinct 
from these, but upon the same plan. 

I have observed nothing particular in the mode of killing cattle 
in Paris ; their heads are brought to a ring, and they are then 
stunned with an axe, and the throat is cut. I do not know that 
a mode of killing producing less suffering has as yet been devised ; 
but I am not without hope that even this mode may be improved 
on. When we consider the vast amount of animal life which 
the wants and luxuries of man require to be daily taken, human- 
ity is greatly concerned in the diminution of the suffering attend- 
ing it. Since Divine Providence has recently revealed to man 
an inexpensive method of suspending sensibility, so that the 
most painful surgical operations are endured without suffering, 
and even without consciousness, and the first discovery has 
been succeeded by one as effectual, and even more simple and 
of more easy application, I see reason to hope that it may be 
applied to the lower classes of animals, to save them, in the cases 
referred to, the pangs of death ; and thus an immense amount of 
animal suffering be prevented. If there are any who regard the 
subject with indifference, and look upon the suggestion as ridic- 
ulous or useless, I can only say that with such persons I have no 
sympathy whatever. 

They have a practice in Paris which I have not seen any 
where else. When the skinning of the animal is commenced, a 
large bellows is inserted under the skin, by which it is inflated, 
and becomes much more easily separated from the flesh than by 
the ordinary process of skinning with the knife. 



CXXIII. — THE FILTH OF PARIS. 

There remains one establishment to be spoken of, directly con- 
nected with, and of great importance to, agriculture, as Avell as 
to comfort and health ; but which, having no other than a dis- 
agreeable interest to many of my readers, I forewarn them at 
once to pass it over ; though a French writer humorously 
observes, that " a book written upon asafoetida is in itself no 



THE FILTH OF PARIS. 411 

more offensive than a book written upon roses." In some 
respects, the habits of the French, both in their houses and the 
streets, are execrable and abominable. No familiarity in any 
degree reconciles a delicate mind to them ; and exposures are 
frequently witnessed in the public streets, which are absolutely 
brutal, and which in England, (not in Scotland,) and in most 
parts of the United States, would be regarded as indictable. Yet 
Paris, in other respects, is an eminently clean city ; and even in 
these matters is evidently improving, and is, with the exception 
of Milan. Turin, and Genoa, vastly in advance of the Italian 
cities. Rome, Florence, and Naples can hardly be considered 
other than as three great public necessaries, where the most 
sacred places are scarcely free from nuisances, which shock all 
decency and reverence ; and the old town of Edinburgh, and 
Glasgow, and Dundee, may fairly claim an unenviable position 
in the same rank. 

This subject, considered in a philosophical and practical view, 
is of the first importance. It would be altogether a false, in 
truth, a mere affectation of delicacy, to hesitate to treat it as its 
importance demands. In all the arrangements of Divine Provi- 
dence, nothing strikes the reflecting mind with more force than 
the beautiful circle of mutual dependence and reciprocity in 
which every thing proceeds ; so that the humble elements per- 
form their part, and the most elevated and brilliant can do no 
more ; and the part of the former is as essential to the common 
well-being as that of the latter. 

Look at a heap of manure, composed of every offensive sub- 
stance which can be congregated together, reeking with detes- 
table odors, and presenting a mixed mass of objects utterly 
disgusting to the touch, the smell, and the sight. Yet this is 
the food of the vegetable world ; containing all the elements of 
richness, nourishment, health, and beauty. All these the plants 
know how to separate, to analyze, to digest, and appropriate, and 
with a skill distancing the sagacity of science, they will return it 
purified and sublimated in bread, and wine, and oil ; in flowers 
of exquisite coloring and beauty ; in perfumes the most odorous 
which nature's toilet can furnish ; in fruits luscious to the taste ; 
and, above all, in products indispensable to life, and full of health 
and strength. The farmer standing in his barn-yard, knee-deep 
in its offensive accumulations, may proudly say, " Here is the 



412 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

source of my wealth ; that which has fed my cattle shall now- 
feed my crops ; that which has given fatness to my flocks shall 
now give fatness to my fields." A mysterious power is ever 
operating in every department of nature ; suffering nothing to 
fail of its use ; •' gathering up the fragments, that nothing he 
lost ; " and providing for the various wants of the infinitely 
varied forms of life to which existence has been given, and from 
which, if the Creator should, for one second, withdraw his guar- 
dian care, the whole must instantly perish. 

The refuse of a city may be considered as of at least five 
diflerent kinds ; first, the ordinary refuse of a house, such as 
fragments of vegetables, remains of food, bones, rags, and a 
thousand miscellaneous and nameless substances ; second, the 
remains of fuel, such as ashes and soot ; third, the refuse of dif- 
ferent trades, of workers in leather, workers in bone, workers in 
horn, soap-boilers, glue manufacturers, workers in hair and in 
wool, sugar refineries, and the innumerable other trades always 
to be found in the busy hive of a city ; fourthly, the dung of the 
domestic animals, cows and horses ; and lastly, human ordure or 
night-soil. I shall say little of some other substances which 
have been used for purposes of manure ; but it is well known 
that many graveyards have been ransacked for the purpose of 
gathering up their mouldering relics, and that many hundreds 
of tons of human bones have been transported from the field of 
Waterloo to England for the purpose of enriching the cultivation. 
It cannot be denied in this case to be a more rational, humane, 
and, I will add, Christian use, than that to which they were put 
in the bloody arena, where they were first deposited. 

In Paris, every species of refuse is husbanded in the most care- 
ful manner. No refuse is allowed to be thrown into the streets 
after a very early hour in the morning, nor until after ten o'clock 
at night. This refuse consists of what may be called the house- 
dirt, and is laid in heaps in front of the houses near the gutters. 
A very numerous class of people, called chiffonnicrs, consisting 
of as many women as men, with deep baskets on their backs, 
and a small stick with a hook at the end, carefully turn over 
every one of these heaps, selecting from them every article of 
bone, leather, iron, paper, and glass, which are thrown at once 
into their baskets, and, being carried to their places of general 
deposit, are there again examined and assorted, and appropriated 



THE FILTH OF PARIS. 413 

to any specific application for which they may be suited. These 
persons appear like a most degraded class ; they inhabit par- 
ticular quarters of the city, and the interior of their habita- 
tions is such as might be expected from their occupation. The 
profession descends in families from father to son, and from 
mother to daughter. They are a most industrious race of peo- 
ple ; and many of them may be seen, even at midnight, with 
their lanterns, taking advantage of the first pickings, and antici- 
pating the labors of the coming morning ; and with the earliest 
dawn they are sure to be found at their tasks. No article of 
food escapes them ; and they call the street their mother, 
because she often thus literally gives them bread. Though 
their occupation is necessarily dirty, yet they are almost always 
comfortably clad, and are never ragged. They never beg, and 
disdain to be considered objects of charity. They are licensed 
by the city authorities, for which some trifling sum is paid, and 
for which they must be recommended for their sobriety and 
good conduct. They have their particular districts assigned 
them, and are very careful to prevent all foreign intrusion. 

The chifl:bnniers having done their work, next come the 
sweepers and collectors of dirt. Every inhabitant of Paris is 
required, under a penalty, to have the sidewalk in front of his 
place of business or residence carefully swept every morning. 
The sweepers of the streets in Paris are almost universally wo- 
men, who, with long twig or birch-brooms, sweep the streets 
thoroughly, and all the accumulations are taken in carts to be 
transported to the great places of deposit. The women assist as 
much in loading the carts as the men. These women appear to 
work extremely hard, carrying always a long broom in their 
hands, and a shovel fastened to their backs, to be used as occa- 
sion may require. The gutters in Paris are washed out every 
morning by fountains, which are placed in every street ; and what 
these sweepers are not able to collect for the carts, they are care- 
ful to sweep into the drains leading into the common sewers. I 
have looked at these people and at the chiffonniers often with 
great interest ; and, filthy and disgusting as their occupation 
necessarily is, I have always felt in my heart a sincere respect 
for persons who, poor as they are, would be ashamed to beg ; 
and who, by the severest and most useful labor, are proud to 
obtain for themselves and their families, though a very humble, 
35* 



414 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

an honest living. Ail this refuse is transported to places appro- 
priated for its deposit, where it remains until it is decomposed, 
and is then sold to the farmers for manure. 



CXXIV. — NIGHT-SOIL. — POUDRETTE. 

The disposal of the night-soil in Paris is a different affair, and 
occupies a large class of persons. In the crowded parts of Lon- 
don and Paris, such an appurtenance to a house as an open yard 
is not always to be looked for, and the houses are built in imme- 
diate contact with each other. The accommodations for the 
family are necessarily within doors. In England there are 
water-closets closing with a trap, and of most exemplary neat- 
ness. In Paris, with some exceptions, they are not water-closets, 
but mere cabinets ; and from habitual neglect, which seems too 
generally to prevail among the middle and lower classes, filling 
the house with a detestable odor. In many of the houses in 
the Scotch cities, and houses not always of an inferior descrip- 
tion, will it be believed, there are no accommodations of this sort 
within or without doors ? The refuse of the family used to be 
thrown from the windows at night, not always to the perfect 
safety of the unwary passenger, and is now commonly carried 
into the gutters in front of the houses, after ten o'clock at night, 
to be taken up by the night-carts in passing. Can it be surpris- 
ing that fever and disease annually remove a large portion of the 
population of such places ? 

In London, this refuse passes off into the common sewer,* and 
from thence mixes with the water of the Thames. It is calcu- 



* The extent of these sewers may be judged of from the fact, that one day in 
London I saw a man emerging' from an opening in Hay Street, near Berkeley 
Square, with a bunch of candles in his hand, who told me he had travelled seven 
miles under ground. Tlie sewers are about five feet in height, and of a propor- 
tional width, being the segment of an oval with the bottom cut off, thus Q . This 
probably was an exaggeration ; but it must require a good deal of courage to 
have ventured even half that distance alone, although it is an undoubted fact, 
that there are many persons in the habit of daily exploring the sewers, where 
they sometimes find prizes of value. What an employment ! 



NIGHT-SOIL. POUDRETTE. 



415 



lated that this refuse, which may be said to be worse than lost, 
would be sufficient to manure annually more than a million acres 
of land, if it could be applied. I have in another place referred 
to an association formed in London, with an enormous capital, 
for the purpose of applying the liquid portions of it ; but the 
progress as yet made does not warrant any public report. The 
passage of this fecal matter into the sewers does not remove all 
offence ; for in London the odor from the traps or ventilators of 
the sewers, which are necessarily frequent, is in warm weather 
disagreeable and odious. Though the habits of the English are 
eminently cleanly, yet, judging from the sanitary reports, the 
condition of things in some of the poorer districts of Loudon, 
and in several of their manufacturing towns, is most objection- 
able and degrading,* Paris, in some respects, then, has the 
advantage of London, and, indeed, of every city which I have 
been in, excepting the cities of Holland and Belgium — in that 
all this fecal matter is saved, and certainly with less offence in 
its removal than could have been supposed possible. 

In general it is removed by what is called the atmospheric 
process. The cart is placed at the door in the street ; a long 
leather hose is extended from the vault to the cart ; and, the air 
being exhausted, the fecal matter, in a semi-fluid state, passes 



* The worst parts of Paris and the worst habits of Paris are, however, entirely- 
distanced by some parts of London, eminently cleanly as it is in many other parts. 
Hear what the philanthropic Lord Ashley has recently said in his place in 
parliament: — 

" He should read a description of a court which he had witnessed himself. It 
was in such places that a large mass of the community dwelt. In one of these 
courts there were three privies to 300 persons ; in another there were two to 200 
people. This was a statement made by a medical man. In a place Avhere these 
public privies existed, scenes of the most shocking character were of daily occur- 
rence. It would scarcely be believed, that these public privies often stood 
opposite the doors of the houses ; modesty and decency were almost altogether 
unpossible." — Times, of June 7, 1848. 

The " cabinets d'aisancc sans odeur," which are to be found in many parts of 
Paris, and which are always kept in the most cleanly condition, but wliich are 
often spoken of with sneers by strangers visiting Paris, are to be highly com- 
mended as useful and important public accommodations. An eminent medical 
gentleman once assured me, " that a very large portion of the worst maladies 
which he had to deal with, arose out of improper neglect in this matter, growing 
out of inconvenient arrangements or a false delicacy, which should be got 
rid of." 



416 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

directly into the cart. The whole affair is managed, not abso- 
lutely without offence, — for that at present seems impossible, — 
but certainly without any offence which is avoidable. The men 
bring their working-dresses with them, so as never to appear in 
the streets otherwise than in decent attire. The vehicle in 
which this fecal matter is conveyed, is a very large, tight cask, 
or sometimes several tight casks ; the horses, harnesses, and the 
whole equipment are of a neat and perfect description ; and in 
most cases would never be detected by a stranger, if either he 
were not informed of their uses, or did not read the inscription 
of the objects to which they are devoted on some part of the 
vehicle. In no case is any offensive matter left in the streets, or 
permitted to escape from the carts, until it arrives at its place of 
deposit. 

The carts arrive at their destination before, or as soon as day- 
light. This place is near one of the barriers of the city. The 
fecal matter is here suffered to run out upon an extensive piece 
of ground, flattened and made hard like the bottom of a brick- 
yard. Here it remains until the liquid portion runs off into an 
artificial basin, from whence as much as is wanted is taken for 
the purpose of extracting the sal-ammoniac. The rest escapes 
into the canal in the neighborhood. The solid matter, becoming 
dry, is then broken up, turned over, re-broken ; and this process 
goes on until it becomes so dry as to be easily reduced to powder, 
when it is laid up in heaps, of which immense masses are accu- 
mulated. It is thus almost entirely deprived of odor, and may 
be handled without offence. In this condition it is sold to the 
farmers, who remove it either in open carts, or in bags or casks. 
I cannot say that this place, (which occupies several acres of 
ground,) or its neighborhood, is without offence ; but it is inhab- 
ited chiefly by persons who get their living by the operation ; 
and to whom, therefore, the offence is not so great. After the 
first drying, when it forms a thick and hard crust, it is broken 
up by the plough, and afterwards by the harrow : and this oper- 
ation is necessarily several times repeated. In the end it passes 
through a thorough sifting. As many women are employed here 
as men ; and the laborers are principally of the lower order of 
Germans, whose industry and acquisitiveness are usually remark- 
able. A great many children are likewise employed ; and the 
search after prizes of value is always animated. As to the health- 



NIGHT-SOIL. POUDRETTE. 417 

iness of the occupation, its early processes are undoubtedly peril- 
ous both to health and life ; and many a poor fellow perishes in 
the vaults, into which they are sometimes compelled to descend ; 
but I found an overseer on the spot, who said he had been con- 
stantly employed there for eighteen years, and had never suffered 
even a day's illness. 

The municipal arrangements in Paris seem to me, in various 
matters, commendable. For eftecting the process spoken of, so 
important and indispensable to health, comfort, and even life, 
there are three contractors, men of large capital, who take the 
whole enterprise of cleansing the city in this matter upon them- 
selves. The city is divided into four districts. The contractors 
are laid under heavy bonds to provide horses, carts, and work- 
men ; never to remit the work excepting one night in seven, — 
Sunday night ; and they are paid so much by the cubic foot, by 
the owner of the house whose vaults they cleanse. They do 
not begin their work before eleven o'clock at night, and they 
must leave the city before daylight. The men are divided into 
parties of five ; and each man has his particular office, and is 
known among them by a distinct name. The corporal, or over- 
seer, constituting one of the five, directs the whole operation, and 
gives his aid as occasion may require. The man whose duty it 
is to descend into the vault, always does it at the risk of his life 
from suffocation. They are liable also to suffer from an inflam- 
mation of the eyes, which makes them blind for several days, in 
which they frequently weep blood, and Avhich is attended with 
extreme suffering. The whole number of persons employed in 
these services, in Paris, exceeds two hundred. They constitute 
a people by themselves, and the employment goes down from 
father to son. Their wages are from twenty to twenty-five 
francs a week, or from four to five dollars, or one pound sterling. 
A notice is given at the proper office, by the owner of a tene- 
ment, that his vault requires to be emptied, and the service is 
immediately attended to. 

I have gone thus at large into these homely details for several 
reasons; first, for their bearing upon agriculture; for, perhaps, 
no manure is so valuable. We send ship after ship into the 
Pacific Ocean, to bring home that for which we have a substi- 
tute equal, if not superior, in efficacy, at our own doors. 
Secondly, because the information how the removal of this mat- 



418 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ter is performed in such a city as Paris, may be of use in other 
cities, where it is generally left to private enterprise, with very 
imperfect apparatus and preparations; and is often slovenly and 
offensively performed. I confess that, in the third place, I have 
been moved by some moral reasons, because I would lose no favor- 
able opportunity of calling the attention of the richer and more 
favored classes in society to the condition of their more humble 
brethren in many departments of human industry, upon the 
results of whose labor they live ; and who peril their lives, and 
pass their days and nights in the most humble, the most severe, 
and often the most odious and disgusting services, to secure the 
health and comfort of those elevated above them ; and receive, in 
the form of compensation for labors so perilous and offensive, 
that which serves only as a bare subsistence. It is said that the 
wives and children of the men who perform the most dangerous 
part of these services, when their husbands and fathers leave 
home at night, show the same anxiety for their safe return, as if 
they were leaving upon some perilous voyage by sea. 

Various methods have been tried for the purpose of disinfect- 
ing this substance ; but, either from their inefficacy or the diffi- 
culty and expense of procuring them, are seldom used. Quick- 
lime thrown into the vaults is said to destroy the best parts 
of the manure ; but, by many persons, however, it is greatly 
approved. Charcoal-dust, burnt tan, peat-ashes, the mud from 
the bottom of rivers or ditches burnt or dried in ovens, have all 
been used, as it is reported, with success ; and may be recom- 
mended, not only as disinfectants, but as useful additions. 

The Parisian arrangements are far from being perfect. In 
London, at present, every thing of this sort is lost. In Paris, only 
the solid portion of the excrementitious matter is saved for 
manure, whereas there is no doubt that the urine is of far greater 
comparative value than the solid portions. Various attempts 
have been made to save this in such a form that it might be 
easily transported ; and in London, manures are sold under the 
name of urates, which are only urine combined with plaster or 
gypsum ; but the quantity of urine taken up in such cases is so 
small, compared with the weight or bulk of the article, that in 
this respect it is considered of little efficacy or value. Chem- 
istry would jierforni an immense service for agriculture, if it 
could discover a means of combining this substance in some 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 419 

portable form, and in which its efficacy might be preserved. 
One of the circumstances constituting the great vakie of guano, 
and of the dung of birds, separate from the particular food on 
which they live, is, that their excrements being voided under 
one form only, the element of urea is inseparably combined 
with the other matters. 

I shall not trouble my readers at present further on this sub- 
ject ,• in which I can only say, I have been anxious to give no 
offence even to the most delicate mind, and must claim their 
indulgence if I have not succeeded. I shall now proceed to 
other topics. 



CXXV. — AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 

The subject of agricultural education has received much 
attention in France ; that attention is increasing, and new insti- 
tutions are growing up, to which the government promptly lend 
their aid. The subject is of so much importance, that I deem it 
proper to give an enlarged account of the leading establishments 
for this object which have come under my notice. 

1. School at Grignon. — The principal establishment for 
agricultural education is at Grignon, about twenty miles from 
Paris. It consists of an estate of 474 hectares, or about 1200 
acres, with a large dwelling-house upon it, — formerly, I believe, 
a royal seat, — and other necessary buildings, which have been 
erected since its endowment. It was ceded by the French king, 
Charles X., for a term of forty years, to a society of gentlemen 
specially interested in agriculture, who have the management of 
the institution, and, by private subscription, have supplied the 
funds for conducting it.* The government are represented in 
the management of the estate. They provide all the instruc- 
tion, by paying the salaries of the professors and superintendent ; 

* The sum raised by private subscription amounted to 300,000 francs, or 
about 60,000 dollars, or £12,000 sterling. The rents paid to the government 
for the estate are the same as were paid by the farmers who previously held it 
The substantial or permanent improvements upon the estate are estimated by a 



420 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

and they support some pupils. The pecuniary results for the 
last few years have been favorable ; and all profits go to the 
support of free pupils, or to increasing and extending the benefits 
of the institution, which is capable of accommodating seventy 
pupils. The term of residence is fixed at two years, though it 
will be seen, from the course of instruction adopted, a much 
longer time is requisite to acquire a thorough education in the 
branches prescribed. 

The institution at Grignon is designed to supply instruction 
both in the science and practice of agriculture, and the constitu- 
tion and arrangement of the school seem admirably adapted to 
this end. The students in general are from that class in life 
who depend upon their own exertions for a livelihood. This is 
as it should be. In the United States we have no other class, 
and, from the present arrangements of property, are not likely to 
have. Long may this wise and happy arrangement continue ! 
In a great portion of Europe, a large part of the community are 
little else than beasts of burden. As long as they live, they 
must carry upon their backs those who do not choose to main- 
tain themselves. It is a pity they could not put their burden 
down, and make them " go themselves." Their doom, how- 
ever, is fixed ; and with the present distribution of political 
power, and the present moss-covered institutions respecting 
property, there is little chance of an alteration. In England and 
in France a class exists, of which, at present, in the free portion 
of the United States, we know nothing ; and it may be some 
time before they are required. These are the persons who man- 
age the estates of large proprietors ; who in England are called 
bailiffs or stewards ; in France, agricultural engineers. Grignon 
may be said to be particularly designed to educate this useful 
class. At the same time, there are among the pupils several who 
seek this education for the management of their own estates ; 
and these agricultural engineers are themselves, without doubt, 
hoping presently to become proprietors. In the south of France, 
land is held generally under what is called the mettaycr system, 
or what is known in the United States as taking land upon 

commissioner once in five years, and are to go, at the end of the lease, in acquit- 
tal of the rent. The money subscribed by individuals was given to the institu- 
tion. On this capital, employed on the farm, an interest of sixteen per cent, 
has been realized, which goes, as above stated, to tlie benefit of the institution. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 421 

shares. After certain deductions, the half of the produce is 
returned to the proprietor as the rent of the land. In either 
case, such education must be highly valuable ; in the case of a 
tenant, that he may be able to obtain the best return from the 
land, and, in the case of the proprietor, that he may know what 
to require, and how properly to direct the management of his 
estate. 

The term of residence at Grignon is fixed at two years ; but 
the pupil remains three months after his studies are completed, in 
order to digest and draw up the entire management of an estate, 
and describe its details in every department. 

The students are divided into classes denominated internals 
and externals, or resident and non-resident. The former reside 
entirely in the house, where they are lodged and boarded, and 
pay about 800 francs, or 32 pounds, or 160 dollars, per year. 
The externals, or non-residents, provide for themselves, or lodge 
at the houses of the neighboring farmers, and pay a very small 
amount for their instruction. This arrangement is particularly 
designed to benefit poor scholars. Both classes are equally sub- 
ject to the general discipline and rules of the institution, and are 
alike engaged in the same works and studies. 

There are lectures every day in the week. At the commence- 
ment of each lecture, the professor examines the pupils on the 
subject of the preceding lecture ; and they are required often to 
take notes, and present a written report of the lecture. Besides 
the professors, there are two monitors, who have been educated 
at the school, who labor with the pupils in the fields. They are 
expected, and it is their duty, to question the pupils on the sub- 
jects which have been treated in the lectures ; to show their 
application ; to illustrate what may have been obscure ; and, in 
short, to leave nothing unexplained which is liable to misunder- 
standing or error. There are two public examinations annually, 
in which the scholars are subjected to a rigorous questioning in 
what they have been taught. If, at the end of two years, their 
conduct has been approved, and their examination is met success- 
fully, they receive a diploma from the institution. 

They are not only employed in the general work of the farm, 

but particular portions of land are assigned to individuals, which 

they manage as they please, and cultivate with their own hands ; 

they pay the rent and expenses of manure and team, and receive 

VOL. II. 36 



422 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



the product, or its value, from the institution. Certain of them 
are appointed in turn to take care of the different departments of 
the farm for a length of time — such as the hog estabhshment, 
the sheep establishment, the cattle, the horses, the implements, 
&c., &c. They have likewise adopted a practice, which seems 
much to be commended — that of employing workmen, shep- 
herds, cow-herds, &c., from foreign countries, — as, for example, 
from Belgium and Switzerland, — that they may in this way 
become acquainted with the best practices in those countries. 

The time is thus divided and arranged among them : They 
rise at four o'clock in summer, and at half past four in winter. 
They go immediately into the stables to assist in the feeding, 
cleaning, and harnessing of the teams, and the general care of 
the live stock, according to their respective assignments. At 
half past five, they take a light breakfast ; at six o'clock, they go 
into the halls of study, and here they remain until eleven o'clock ; 
at half past six, they attend a lecture, or course of instruction, 
which occupies them until eight o'clock ; at half past eight, they 
are occupied in reading or in making notes of the lectures which 
they have heard, and the monitors before spoken of are present 
to render them any assistance required ; at half past nine o'clock, 
there is another lecture or course of instruction for both sections, 
which occupies them until eleven, when they take their second 
or principal breakfast. From noon until five o'clock, the pupils 
are occupied in labor or practical operations. The professors, 
from time to time, take a section, and employ them in land-sur- 
veying, in drawing plans, and in levellings ; others are occupied 
in mineralogical or in botanical excursions, or in inspecting the 
management of forest lands ; others are occupied by their teacher 
in the practical management of farming implements, in the man- 
agement of teams in the field, in sowing, and other general oper- 
ations of husbandry, in a field devoted to these purposes ; and a 
section, to the number of twelve, are every day employed in the 
direct labors of the farm, in ploughing, digging, harrowing, &c., 
&c. They work in company with the best laborers, that they 
may observe and learn their modes of executing their work. 
They are required to be attentive to every operation that is per- 
formed, and to present a full report of each day's work to the 
director-general. 

At half past five in winter, and at six in summer, they take 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, 423 

their dinner. At seven o'clock in the evening, they go again 
into the halls of study. From seven to half past eight o'clock, 
there is another course of instruction, or a repetition of what they 
have had before. Until nine o'clock, they are occupied in their 
journals, or in making notes of their lectures. At nine o'clock, 
the sleeping -rooms are lighted, and they retire for the night. 

There are several distinct professorships. The Professor of 
Practical Agriculture gives two courses ; the one written, the 
other oral ; and, like the lecture of a clinical professor at the 
bedside, it is given in the fields. This professor understands 
not only how a thing should be done, but how to do it ; and he 
can put his hand to every form of agricultural labor, such as 
ploughing, harrowing, sowing, managing the teams, feeding the 
animals, handling every instrument of agriculture, buying, sell- 
ing, &.C. In the words of his commission, his object is at the 
same time to form the eye and the hand ; to teach his pupil how 
to learn ; to command, to direct, and to execute. To this end 
it was necessary to form a complete agricultural organization for 
practice, independent of the exercises attached to the depart- 
ments of the other professors. 

The farm is composed of 

Arable land, about 670 acres. 

Land in wood and plantations, .... 365 " 

Irrigated meadows, 35 " 

Gardens, including vegetable, botanical, 
fruit garden, orchards, mulberry plan- 
tations, osiers, and nurseries, .... 28 acres. 

Ponds and watercourses, 15 " 

Roads and lands in pasture, 50 " 

Occupied by buildings, 6 " 

The animals on the farm include, 

Animals of draught or labor of different 

kinds, 18 

Oxen for fatting, • . . 20 

Cows of different ages and races, and 

diflerent crosses, 100 

Sheep, embracing the different kinds, . . 1100 

Swine establishment, ....... 100 



424 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

There are likewise on the establishment workshops or manu- 
factories, if so they may be called, — 

For the making of agricultural implements ; 

A threshing-house and machine for grain ; 

A dairy room, for the manufacture of different kinds of cheese 
and of butter ; 

A magnanerie, or establishment for silk-worms ; 

A stercorary, for the manufacture of compost manures. 

To all these various departments the attention of the students 
is closely called, and they are required to take some part in the 
labors connected with them. 

Besides the farm belonging to the establishment, there is a 
field of one hundred acres devoted exclusively to the pupils, and 
principally to the culture of plants not grown on the farm. 
Here they make experiments in different preparations of the soil, 
and with different manures. 

Two scholars, one of the second and one of the first year, 
are appointed to attend particularly to the general condition of 
the farm. Their business is to examine constantly the whole 
establishment ; the works that are going on in every depart- 
ment ; to look after the woods and the plantations ; the gardens; 
the horses ; the fatting cattle ; the dairy ; the sheep-fold ; the 
swine ; and the hospital ; and to attend to the correspondence 
and the visitors. This service lasts a fortnight, and there is a 
change of one every week, taking care always that there shall be 
one scholar of the first and one of the second year associated. 
They attend to all the labors on the farm, and to all the commu- 
nications between the principal director and inspectors and the 
laborers. In the veterinary or hospital department of the estab- 
lishment, they assist the surgeon in all his visits and operations ; 
take notes of his prescriptions ; make up and attend to the 
administration of Iws medicines ; and observe particularly the 
sanitary condition of the stables and buildings, where the live 
stock, sick or well, are kept. 

On Saturday evening, each scholar, to whom this duty has 
been assigned, makes to his fellow-pupils a full verbal report of 
what has been done. This report is transcribed into a journal 
designed for that purpose ; and thus a continued history of the 
entire management of the farm is kept up. The whole school 
is divided into sections or classes of twelve each ; six of two and 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 425 

six of one year's standing ; and these sections are constantly 
under the direction of the Professor of Practical Agriculture. 

As the establishment at Grignon may be considered a model 
agricultural establishment, it may be useful to go more into 
detail in regard to the course of instruction pursued here. 

Once a week there is an exercise, which embraces every thing 
relating to the management of the teams and the implements. 

First, for example, in the different modes of executing any 
work, and using the utensils employed. The harness, the collar, 
the traces, and how attached, the shaft-horse or the cattle 
attached to the load, and the adjustment of the load to their 
backs ; the yoke, the single yoke, the double yoke ; the pack- 
saddle ; the harnessing of a saddle-horse ; the team for plough- 
ing ; the team for harrowing ; the team for drawing loads ; the 
team for wagons and for carriages with all their appurtenances ; 

— every one of these matters is to be practically understood, as 
well as the whole management of the team in action. 

In ploughing, the turning the furrow, its inclination, its 
breadth and depth; the laying out of fields; the management 
of large and small fields ; how to make the first furrow, and to 
finish the last furrow ; to lay the land flat, to break it up in 
clods ; to plough it at a certain angle, to lay the land in curved 
furrows; — these are all considered, and make part of the instruc- 
tion given. The preparation, equipment, and use of every agri- 
cultural implement — such as ploughs, harrows, rollers, scarifiers, 
cultivators, sowing machines, trenching machines ; the practice 
of sowing, the diff"erent modes of sowing, whether broadcast, by 
dibble, or in drills ; the application of manure both as to time, 
mode, quantity, and preparation, and the composting of manures. 

— are matters of inquiry and practice. 

The cutting of grasses ; the making of hay, and the construc- 
tion of stacks ; the harvesting of grain, by the scythe or by the 
sickle ; appendages to the scythe, called commonly the cradle ; 
and the grinding of scythes ; the making of sheaves, and of 
shocks, or stacks ; and the loading and the stowing away of 
grain, — are matters to be understood. 

A practical attention is required to every form of service on 
the farm ; in the cow-house ; the horse-stables ; the fatting- 
stalls ; the sheep-fold ; the sties ; the poultry-yard ; the thresh- 
ing-floor ; the stercorary ; and the storehouses for the produce 
36* 



426 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

of the farm of every description. The duties in this case em- 
brace not merely the observation of how these things are done, 
but the actual doing of them, until an expertness is acquired. 

Leaving the practical department, we come now to the course 
of studies to be pursued. 

For admission into the institution some previous education is 
demanded, and the candidate is subjected to an examination 
before the principal and one of the professors. 

First, he is required to present an essay upon some subject 
assigned to him, that his knowledge of the French language and 
grammar may be ascertained. 

It is necessary, next, that he should be well grounded in the 
four great rules of arithmetic ; in fractions, vulgar and decimal ; 
in the extraction of the roots ; in the rules of proportion and 
progression ; and in the system of measures adopted in France. 

In geometry, he must be well acquainted with the general 
principles of straight lines and circles, and their various com- 
binations ; and with the general measurement of plane surfaces. 

In natural philosophy, he must understand the general proper- 
ties of bodies, and be acquainted with the uses of the barometer 
and thermometer. 

Candidates for admission must bring with them certificates of 
good character and manners, and must be at least eighteen years 
old. They are rigidly held to an attendance upon all the courses 
of instruction at the institution, and have leave of absence only 
on the application of their parents or guardians. 

The studies of the first year are begun with a course of math- 
ematics. Geometry and trigonometry are made a particular 
subject of attention ; embracing the study of straight lines, and 
circular or curved lines, on the same plan ; the admeasurement 
of surfaces ; the use of the compass ; the recording of measure- 
ments ; the delineation of measurements ; the surveying of open 
fields, of woods, of marshes, of ponds or lakes: comparison of 
ancient land measures with those in present use ; the use of the 
square, the chain, and the compass; the elevation of plans; the 
construction of scales, and the ordinary divisions of landed 
properties. 

The study of various plans in any form ; solid measure ; conic- 
sections, their principal properties, and their practical application ; 
the theory and practice of levelling ; the method of projections 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 427 

and their application ; cubic measure of different solids, of hewn 
stones, of rough stones ; the measurement of loose or broken 
stones, of sand, of lands excavated, of ground filled in, of 
stacks, and of heaps of manure ; the cubic measure of trees 
standing, and of felled trees, of beams, and every kind of carpen- 
ter's work, of firewood, of walls, arches, and ditches or dikes ; 
the ascertaining of the capacity of carriages, wagons, carts, 
wheel-barrows, pails, troughs, barrels and casks, basins or ponds, 
and different vessels in use, and of granaries and barns, and the 
determination of the weights of bodies. To all this is added a 
full course of trigonometry. They are accustomed likewise to 
the familiar use of the scale, of the square, of the compass, and 
of the compasses for delineation, and are often occupied in super- 
ficial and in profile drawing. 

The next course of instruction embraces embankments, the 
force of earths and liquids, or their pressure, at rest or in motion. 

The materials employed in masonry ; their uses and applica- 
tion in building — embracing stones, bricks, lime, sand, mortars, 
cements, plaster ; and all the various modes of building. 

The laying of walls for foundations ; the erection of walls ; 
the supports requisite ; and the construction of passages, enclo- 
sures, and arches ; the different kinds of woods, their absolute 
and relative strength ; their duration, and the modes of preserv- 
ing them ; every kind of carpenter's work ; the construction of 
floors, staircases, scaffoldings, and exterior supports ; the con- 
structions of roofs, in timber, with thatch, rushes, shingles, tiles, 
slates, zinc, or bitumen ; the paving of roads, the formation of 
barn-floors, with clay or composition of bituminous substances, 
which form a hard and enduring surface, — are subjects of inquiry. 

Next comes instruction in the blacksmith's shop, in the use 
of the forge, and the other implements of the trade ; and in the 
various applications of iron and steel, of copper, lead, and zinc. 

They are instructed, likewise, in the manufacture and use of 
leather and cordage ; and in the various details of painting and 
glazing. The prices or cost likewise of all these different pro- 
cesses, are, as far as practicable, ascertained ; and the modes of 
estimating such work are explained. 

The next course embraces the elements of natural philosophy; 
and this includes chemistry, geology, and mineralogy. 

First, the general properties of bodies, their divisibility, elas- 



428 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ticity, and porosity or absorbent powers ; and the special influ- 
ence of this last circumstance upon the character of an arable 
soil. 

The following are all subjects of study : bodies in the mass ; 
the weight of bodies ; means of determining the density of bodies 
and their specific gravity ; the physical properties of the air ; of 
atmospheric pressure ; and of the cons-trnction and use of the 
barometer. 

The study of hydrostatics ; the pressure of liquids in their 
reservoirs, and against dikes and embankments ; hydraulics : 
capillary attraction ; the use of siphons and pumps. 

The study of heat in all its various phenomena. Its effects 
upon solid and liquid bodies, and the ciianges which it makes in 
their condition ; the phenomena of fusion, ebullition, and evap- 
oration ; of vapors; of the hygrometer or measurer of moisture, 
and the utility of the instrument ; the conducting powers of 
bodies ; of metals in particular ; of free or radiating heat ; appli- 
cation of heat to furnaces or kilns ; laws of cold applied to 
bodies ; power of emitting and of absorbing cold ; measure of 
heat ; means of determining the mean temperature of any place ; 
influence of heat and cold upon vegetation ; means of preserving 
certain vegetables from frost ; construction and use of the 
thermometer. 

Meteorology. Explication of the phenomena of dew ; of 
white frosts ; of clouds ; of rain ; of snow ; their various influ- 
ences upon harvest, and the whole subject of cHmate. 

Study of light. Progress of light in space ; laws of its reflec- 
tion ; laws of its refraction ; action of light upon vegetation. 
The subject of vision. The polarization of light ; the explica- 
tion of the rainbow, and other phenomena of light ; the prism. 

Study of electricity. Conductors of electricity ; distribution 
of the electric fluid in nature ; power of the electric rods or 
points ; electricity developed by the contact of bodies ; of gal- 
vanic piles ; their construction and uses. Atmospheric elec- 
tricity ; its origin ; the formation of thunder clouds ; action of 
electricity upon vegetation ; of lightning ; of thunder ; of hail. 

Chemistry. Simple bodies ; compound bodies ; diflerence 
between combination and mixture ; atomical attraction ; cohe- 
sion ; afllnity ; what is intended by chemical agents. Explana- 
tion of the chemical nomenclature, and of chemical terms. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 429 

The study of simple bodies. Of oxygen; its properties; its 
action upon vegetation, and upon animal life. Nitrogen, sulphur, 
chlorine, carbon, hydrogen ; their action upon vegetable and 
animal substances ; their uses in veterinary medicine, and their 
influence upon vegetation. 

The study of compound substances. Chemistry as applied to 
air and water ; their importance in agriculture ; their influence 
upon the action and life of plants and animals; the acids, — the 
sulphuric, the nitric, the carbonic, the chloric ; the alkalies, — 
lime, soda, potassium, ammonia ; their application in various 
forms. The salts in chemistry, and their various applications 
and uses ; their importance as constituent parts of the soil, or as 
improvements. 

The subject of marls and of earths, and of various substances 
deemed favorable to vegetation. Under the direction of the 
Professor of Chemistry, the students are taught to make analyses 
of difierent soils and marls. 

To this is added a course of Mineralogy and Geology. This 
embraces the general properties of minerals ; the physical, chem- 
ical, and mechanical character of mineral substances the most 
common. 

The study of the distinctive properties and situation of those 
mineral substances which are most extended over the globe, and 
which are the most in use ; such, especially, as the carbonate of 
lime ; comprehending stones for building, for the making of 
roads and walls, limestones, marbles, sulphate of lime, or plaster 
of Paris ; and all the variety of mineral substances ordinarily 
found, and of use in agriculture or the arts. 

A course of Geology follows this, embracing all the leading 
features of the science, with a special reference to all substances 
or conditions of the soil connected with agricultural improvement. 

In this case, the professor makes frequent excursions with the 
pupils, that they may become familiarly acquainted with the sub- 
jects treated of in the lectures, and see them in their proper local- 
ities ; so that the great truths of geological science may be 
illustrated by direct and personal observation. 

Next follows a course of instruction in horticulture, or gar- 
dening. 

Of the soil ; the surface and the subsoil, and practical consid- 
erations relative to their culture and products. 



430 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Of the climate ; the temperature, the aspect and local condition 
of the land in reference to the products cultivated ; the ameliora- 
tion of the soil, and the substances to be used for that object, 
with the modes of their application. 

The various horticultural operations, and implements employed ; 
and manner in which they are to be executed. The employ- 
ment of water in irrigation ; modes of enclosing by ditches or 
walls ; walls for the training of trees ; trellises and palings ; and 
of protections against the wind. 

The different modes of multiplication ; sowing, engrafting by 
cuttings and by layers, and practical illustrations of these differ- 
ent processes. The culture of seed-bearing or grain-producing 
plants ; the choice of them ; their planting and management ; 
the harvesting and preservation of the crops. 

Under this head comes the kitchen-garden, and the choice of 
the best esculent vegetables for consumption ; the nursery, and 
the complete management of trees from their first planting ; the 
fruit-garden, considered in all its details ; and the flower-garden. 

The general results of gardening ; the employment of hand, or 
spade-labor ; the care, preservation, and consumption of the 
products, and their sale. The gardens at Grignon are upon a 
scale sufficient to supply all practical demonstrations. 

The next division embraces the botanical garden. Here the 
whole science of botany is treated in its principles, and their 
practical application. The study of vegetable organization, with 
a full account of the prevailing systems and nomenclature of 
botany, and the classification of plants. Vegetable physiology, 
in all its branches, and vegetable anatomy ; comparison of plants 
in their native and cultivated states ; influence of cultivation in 
developing and improving plants ; the propagation of plants in 
their natural condition, or by artificial means ; the subject of 
rotation, or change of crops. 

The practical application of these botanical instructions ; and 
especially in the examination of plants or vegetables which may 
be useful in an economical view. 

The garden of the establishment embraces what is called a 
school of trees ; a school of plants for economical and commer- 
cial purposes ; and a school of plants for common use. These 
are all carefully classed and distinguished by their proper names. 
The pupils are accustomed to be led into the gardens by the 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 431 

professor, that his instructions may be fully exemplified and 
coMfirmed. 

The next branch of science taught at the school is veterinary 
surgery and medicine. This embraces a course of anatomy and 
animal physiology. It comprehends a full description of all the 
animal organs ; and demonstrations are given from subjects, de- 
stroyed or obtained for that purpose. The functions of the 
different organs are likewise described ; the organs of digestion, 
respiration, circulation, and the organs connected with the con- 
tinuance of the species. 

Every part of the animal, external and internal, is shown, its 
name given, its uses explained ; its situation in relation to the 
other organs ; the good points, the faults or defects in an animal ; 
the peculiarities of different races of animals, with the modes of 
discriminating among them. 

The choice of animals intended for different services, — as in 
horses, for example, whether for the saddle, the race, the chase, 
the carriage, the road, the wagon, or the plough. Next, the 
treatment of the diseases of animals ; the medicines in use ; 
their preparation, and the mode of applying or employing them. 

The next subject of instruction embraces a complete system 
of keeping farm accounts and journals, with the various books 
and forms necessary to every department. 

From this the pupil proceeds to what is called rural legisla- 
tion, embracing an account of all the laws which affect agricul- 
tural property or concerns. 

I shall give a specimen of some of the topics treated of in 
this department. 

The civil rights and duties of a French citizen, and the 
constitution of France. 

Property, movable or immovable, or, as denominated with 
us, personal and real ; of the divisions of property ; of its use 
and its obligations. 

Of commons ; of laws relating to forests ; of the rights of 
fishing in rivers ; and of hunting. 

The laws relating to rural police ; to public health ; to public 
security ; to contagious or epidemic diseases. 

The rights of passage of men or animals over the land of 
another; if any, and what. 

Of crimes. Theft in the fields ; breaking or destruction of 



432 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the instruments of agriculture ; throwing open enclosures ; de- 
struction or removal of bounds. Laying waste the crops by 
walking over them ; inundation of fields by the stoppage of 
streams, or the erection of mills. Injury or breaking of public 
roads and bridges. Poisoning, killing, or wounding animals. 

The duties of country magistrates ; guards or justices of 
peace. Of courts of law. 

Of contracts, general and specific. Contracts of sale and pro- 
hibitory conditions. Of leases of different sorts. Of hiring 
labor J- of the obligations of masters and servants. Of corpora- 
tions, and the laws applicable to agricultural associations. 

Of deeds, mortgages, bills of exchange, commissions, and 
powers of agency and attorney ; insurance against fire, hail, and 
other hazards. Of the proof of obligations ; written proof ; oral 
testimony ; presumptive evidence ; of oaths. Of legal proceed- 
ings ; of the seizure of property real or personal, and of bail. 

The instruction proceeds imder various courses, and I have so 
far given but a limited account of its comprehensiveness, and the 
variety of subjects which it embraces. 

The study of the different kinds of soil, and of manures, 
with all their applications, and the improvements aimed at, take 
in a wide field. Under the head of soils there are the argilla- 
ceous, the calcareous, the siliceous, turf-lands, heath-lands, vol- 
canic soils, the various subsoils, loam, and humus. 

Under the head of manures, come the excrements of animals, 
all fecal matter, poudrette, urine ; the excrements of fowls : 
guano ; noir animalisee ; the refuse of sugar refineries ; the 
relics of animals ; oil-cakes ; the refuse of makings ; tanners' 
bark ; bones, hair, and horn ; aquatic plants ; green-dressings. 

The application likewise of sand, clay, marl, lime, plaster, 
wood-ashes, turf-ashes, soot, salt ; the waste of various manufac- 
tures ; mud and street dirt. 

The plants cultivated for bread ; wheat, rye, barley, oats, 
buckwheat, millet, rice, and the modes of cultivating them. 

For forage, — potatoes, beets, turnips, ruta-bagas, carrots, arti- 
chokes, parsnips, beans, cabbage. 

Lucern, lupines, sainfoin, common clover, trifolium incarna- 
tum, vetches, peas, lentils, and plants for natural meadows and 
for pasturage. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 433 

To these arc added, colza, rape, poppy, mustard, white and 
black, hemp, flax, cotton, madder, saffron, woad, hops, tobacco, 
chicory, teasels. 

The weeds prejudicial to agriculture, and the insects which 
attack the plant while growing, or in the granary or barn. 

The production of milk ; and, as already said, the making of 
butter and cheese. 

The production of wool ; tests of its fineness ; classing of 
wools ; shearing of sheep ; weight of the fleece ; washing of 
wool before or after shearing ; and every particular in reference 
to the subject. 

The fatting of beef, mutton, and pork. Choice of animals 
for this purpose ; nutritive properties of different kinds of food ; 
in what form to be given ; grains entire or ground ; roots cooked 
or raw, green or dry ; the value of the pulp of beet-root after the 
sugar is expressed ; refuse of the starch factories ; of the distil- 
lery ; of the brewery ; fatting by pasture or in stalls ; comparison 
of the live weight with that of the animal when slaughtered. 

Care and management of the various kinds of domestic 
poultry. 

Care and management of bees, with the construction of 
hives. 

Care of silk-worms, and their entire management. 

All these studies are pursued in the first year of the course ; 
and the time is so arranged as to aff"ord the diligent pupil an 
opportunity of meeting his duties, though the period is obviously 
too limited for the course prescribed. 

The second year enjoins the continuance and enlargement of 
these important studies ; the higher branches of mathematics 
and natural philosophy ; an extended knowledge of chemistry ; 
and a thorough acquaintance with mechanics, when the scholars, 
%vith their professor, visit some of the principal machine-shops 
and factories in Paris, or its environs, in order to become practi- 
cally acquainted with them. 

The students are further instructed in the construction of 
farm-buildings of every description ; in irrigation, in all its forms ; 
in the drainage of lands ; in the construction of roads ; in every 
thing relating to farm implements ; and in the consti-uction of 
mills and presses. 

As I have said, organic chemistry is largely pursued with the 
VOL. II. 37 



434 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

various inannfactiires to which it is applicable ; and animal phys- 
iology and comparative anatomy are very fully taught. 

These studies are followed by a course of what is called agri- 
cultural technology. This embraces the manufacture, if so it 
may be called, of lime, of cement, of bricks ; the preparations of 
plaster ; the making of coal by various processes ; the making of 
starch; the making and purification of vegetable oils; the mak- 
ing of wines, of vinegar, of beer, of alcohol, of sugar from the 
beet-root, including all the improvements which have been intro- 
duced into this branch of manufacture ; and the pupils, under 
the direction of the professor, are taken to see the various manu- 
factories of these articles, so far as they are accessible in the 
vicinity. 

The whole subject of forests, of nurseries, of fruit-trees, orna- 
mental trees, trees for fuel, trees for mechanical purposes, are 
brought under the student's notice. This is a great subject in 
France, where wood has an extraordinary value ; where immense 
extents of ground are devoted solely to the cultivation of trees ; 
and where, consequently, it is most desirable to understand the 
proper kinds of wood to be selected for the purpose in view ; the 
proper mode of forwarding the growth of the trees ; and of 
removing them without prejudice to their restoration. Under this 
head comes the culture of 

Trees for fuel. 

Trees for timber. 

Trees for house and ship-building. 

Trees for fruit, including all the varieties adapted to a particu- 
lar climate. 

Trees for their oily matter ; such as olives. 

Trees for their bark ; to be used in tanning, and other purposes. 

Trees for their resinous properties ; such as pines. 

Osiers and willows for making baskets. 

Mulberry-trees for the support of silk- worms. 

Next to this comes the culture of vines, and the establishment 
and care of a vineyard — a subject of great importance in France. 

I have already spoken of the veterinary course of instruction. 
This embraces the whole subject of the breeding and rearing of 
animals ; their training, shoeing, and harnessing, and entire 
management. 

Under the head of farm accounts, the establishment itself at 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 435 

Grignon is made an example ; the accounts of which are kept 
most accurately by some of the students, and open to the inspec- 
tion of all. 

A journal of every thing which is done upon the farm is made 
up every night ; and these accounts are fairly transferred into a 
large book. 

To this is added, a particular account of the labors performed, 
and the occupation of each workman on the farm. 

Next, a cash-book, embracing payment and sales, which are 
adjusted every fortnight. 

Next, an account with the house ; charging every article sup- 
plied or consumed. 

Next, a specific account of each principal department of the 
farm ; such as the dairy, with all its expenses and returns ; the 
pork establishment ; the granary, &c., which are all balanced 
every month, so that the exact condition of the department may 
be known. 

As the students are advanced, more general and enlarged views 
of the various subjects of inquiry are given ; such as, 

The taking of a farm, and the cultivation or management to 
be adopted. 

The influence of climate and soil. 

The crops to be grown ; and the rotation of crops. 

Agricultural improvements generally. 

The devoting of land to pasturage; to dairy husbandry ,• to 
the raising of animals ; to the fatting of cattle ; to the growth 
of wool ; to the production of grain ; to the raising Cf plants for 
different manufacturing purposes ; or to such a mixed husbandry 
as may be suggested by the particular locality. 

The use of capital in agriculture ; the mode of letting farms ; 
cash rents ; rents in kind ; rents in service ; laws regulating the 
rights and obligations of real estate ; the conveyance of real 
estate ,• with the various forms of culture in large or in small 
possessions, or on farms of a medium size. 

I have extended, perhaps bevond the patience of my reader, 
the account of the Agricultural School at Grignon, and yet have 
given an imperfect and abridged statement of the subject matters 
of instruction and study at this institution. The institution at 
Grignon may be considered as a model establishment ; and a 
thorough education in the various branches referred to, must be, 
to any young man, an important and invaluable acquisition. 



436 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The question comes up, Will such an education make men 
better farmers ? It must be their own fault if it does not. There 
may be some branches of the prescribed course, which may not 
appear to have a direct practical bearing ; but there is not one 
without its use ; if not directly, yet indirectly subservient to 
agricultural improvement ; and if not immediately applicable to 
practice, yet intimately connected with the agricultural profes- 
sion, adapted to increase its power, utility, and dignity, to elevate 
and adorn it. 

2. Veterinary School at Alfort. — I must not, in this 
connection, pass over the veterinary schools of France. There 
are three of these institutions in France, and they furnish all the 
advantages to be expected from such establishments. The three 
veterinary schools established by the government of France are 
at Alfort, Lyons, and Toulouse, and comprise 600 students. The 
average number of horses kept on them is 1332 ; viz., 838 stal- 
lions. 127 mares, 212 colts, 99 fillies, and 56 draught horses,* 
The one at Alfort is that which I have had the pleasure of 
inspecting. 

This establishment is beautifully situated on the River Seine, 
near the village of Charenton, about six miles from Paris. The 
buildings for the different objects of the institution are spacious 
and well contrived, and the grounds sufficiently extensive and 
judicioasly arranged. Like other governmental establishments 
in France which have come under my observation, the institu- 
tion is upon a grand scale, and complete in all its parts. The 
government of France, in a liberal manner, avails itself of the 
talents of the most competent men in every department, and of 
all the advantages wliich science and art can afford; and it spares 
no expense in the perfect execution of whatever it undertakes. 
It adds to all this, as is every where to be seen, a refinement of 
taste in the arrangement of the most ordinary subjects, which 
increases the expense only in a small degree, which does not 
abstract at all from the solidity ahd substantial character of the 
work itself; but relieves that whicK would otherwise be monot- 
onous, if not offensive, and renders often the plainest subjects 
attractive. 

The school at Alfort is designed to furnish a complete course 

* Statistical Report. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 437 

of instruction in veterinary medicine and surgery ; embracing not 
horses only, but all the domestic animals. A student at his en- 
trance must be well versed in the common branches of education : 
and a full course of instruction requires a residence of four years. 
The number of pupils is limited to three hundred. Of these, 
forty are entirely supported by the government. These arc 
educated for the army ; and are required not only to become 
versed in the science and practice of veterinary medicine and 
surgery, but likewise in the common business of a blacksmith's 
shop, as far as it is connected with farriery. Students can be 
admitted only by the nomination or with the consent of one of 
the great officers of government, the minister of commerce and 
agriculture. The expense of board and lodging is about fifteen 
pounds, or eighty dollars a year ; the instruction is wholly 
gratuitous, the professors being supported by the government. 

The establishment presents several hospitals or apartments for 
sick horses, cows, and dogs. There are means for controlling 
and regulating, as far as possible, the temperature of the rooms, 
and for producing a complete and healthy ventilation. There 
are stables where the patients may be kept entirely alone, when 
the case requires it ; and there are preparations for giving them, 
as high as their bodies, a warm bath, which, in cases of diseased 
limbs or joints, may be of great service. There is a large college 
with dormitories and dining-rooms for the students; houses for 
the professors within the enclosure ; rooms for operations upon 
animals, and for anatomical dissections ; a room with a complete 
laboratory for a course of chemical lectures ; a public lecture- 
room or theatre ; and an extensive smithery, with several forges 
fitted up in the best possible manner. There are, likewise, sev- 
eral stands, contrived with some ingenuity, for confining the feet 
of horses, that students may make with security their first 
attempts at shoeing, or in which the limb, after it has been sep- 
arated from its lawful owner, may be placed for the purpose of 
examination and experiment. 

An extensive suite of apartments presents an admirable, and, 
indeed, an extraordinary museum, both of natural and artificial 
anatomical preparations, exhibiting the natural and healthy state 
of the animal constitution ; and, likewise, remarkable examples 
of diseased affections. The perfect examples of the anatomy 
of the horse, the cow, the sheep, the hog, and the dog, in 
37* 



438 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



which the muscular integuments, the nerves, tlie blood-vessels, 
and, indeed, all the parts, are separated and preserved, and ex- 
hibited, by the extraordinary skill of an eminent veterinary 
surgeon and artist now deceased, who occupied the anatomical 
chair of the institution, exhibit wonderful ingenuity in their dis- 
section and preservation, and present an interesting and useful 
study, not to the medical students only, but to the most ordinary 
as well as the most profound philosophical observer. I have 
seen no exhibition of the kind of so remarkable a character. 

The numerous examples of diseased affections, preserved, as 
far as possible, in their natural state, strongly attract observation, 
and make a powerful appeal to our humanity in showing how 
much these poor animals, who minister so essentially to our 
service and pleasures, must suffer without being able to acquaint 
us with their sufierings ; and how often they are probably com- 
pelled to do duty, and driven to the hardest services by the whip 
or the spur, in circumstances in which a human being would not 
be able to stand up. A great number of calculi, or stones, taken 
from the bladders of horses after death, are exhibited, of a large 
size, and, in some instances, of a very rough exterior, which 
must have excessively irritated and pained the sensitive parts 
with which they came in contact. One of these stones was 
larger than the head of an ordinary man, and weighed, as I was 
informed by the attendant, tliirty-eight pounds. I am aware 
how severely this account may tax the belief of my readers, but 
I assure them there is no exaggeration, though I should have 
found great difliculty in believing the fact, had I not seen the 
stone. It is scarcely possible to overrate the suffering which 
the poor animal must have endured under such an infliction.* 

The department for sick dogs, containing boxes for those which 
require confinement, and chains for such as require to be kept in 
the open air, and a cooking apparatus and kitchen for the prepara- 
tion of their food, was spacious, well arranged, and contained 

* Facts of this nature strongly demonstrate the importance of pure water for 
our brute animals as well as for ourselves. Sucli diseases are most likely to 
occur in a country Avhere the waters are strongly impregnated with lime. In 
Paris, where, of all places wjiich 1 i)ave seen, they appear least demanded by any 
excess of modesty, or even sense of common decency, it is said, that since tlie 
erection of public urinals along some of tlie principal streets, the diseases of 
gravel or stone in the human subject have greatly diminished. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 439 

a large number of patients. Any sick animals may be sent to 
the establishment, and their board is to be paid at a fixed rate of 
charges ; twelve sous or cents, or sixpence, per day for a dog ; 
and fifty sons or cents, or twenty-five pence, for a horse, includ- 
ing medicine, advice, and attendance. In cases of epidemics 
or murrain prevailing in any of the districts of France, the 
best attendance and advice are sent from these schools to assist 
in the cure, and especially to watch the symptoms and progress 
of the malady. In countries where large standing armies are 
maintained, and where of course there are large bodies of cav- 
alry and artillery to be attended upon, as well as wagon-horses 
for carrying the supplies, the importance of veterinary surgery is 
vastly increased ; but in countries where no standing armies 
exist, the number of horses kept for use or pleasure, and of other 
domestic animals, bears a much larger proportion to the number 
of human beings than we should be likely to infer without in- 
quiry ; and renders the profession highly important. 

A large and select library belongs to the establishment, and a 
garden for the cultivation of medicinal plants, and likewise of the 
grasses employed in agriculture. A farm is likewise attached to 
the place, on which instruction is given in practical agriculture, 
and numbers of various kinds of animals are kept for the pur- 
pose of breeding the best, and illustrating the effects of crossing. 
Some selected animals of domestic and of the best foreign 
breeds, — horses, bulls, cows, and sheep, — are kept for this special 
object. On one occasion, Avhen I visited the institution, there 
was a public sale of bulls of the improved short-horns, which 
had been raised upon the place ; and of some bucks of the best 
breeds of England, the Leicester, the South-down, and others 
from a cross of the Leicester with a large-sized Merino. I saw at 
Grignon the cross also of the South-down with the Merino. These 
crosses presented examples of improved form, of large size, and of 
a great quantity of wool of a good, but not of a very fine, quality. 
These were the result of a first cross ; how far it may be suc- 
cessfully continued is not determined. Attempts of this kind 
to intermix breeds of a decidedly different constitutional charac- 
ter, as far as my inquiries have been extended, have not bcoi 
satisfactory after a first cross. These animals belonged to the 
government, and were sold, not with a view to profit, but to the 
general improvement of the breeds of Franco. In this excellent 



440 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

mode, the government provides, in respect to horses, cattle, anu 
sheep, for the propagation through the kingdom of the most 
valuable races. The minimum price was fixed upon the animals 
as they were brought forward, and they went into the hands of 
those who made the highest advance, and who were required, 
imder certain conditions, to keep them for the purposes of breed- 
ing.* Besides these sales, the best description of horses and neat 
cattle, studs, and bulls, owned by the government, are at the 
service of the farmers upon the most liberal terms, for the im- 
provement of their stock. 

In England, the veterinary establishments are maintained by 
private subscription. Perhaps, in general, that which is left to 
private management under the stimulus of personal interest is 
better cared for than that which is wholly public property; but 
as in this establishment there is no want of liberality on the part 
of the government, so there seems to be no want of fidelity and 
diligence in accomplishing its objects. The students are numer- 
ous, and the professors eminent for their scientific and practical 
acquirements. 

3. Agricultural Colony at Mettray. — There are two other 
institutions for agricultural education in France, which I visited 
with great interest, and a notice of which will not, I hope, be 
unacceptable — the one at Mettray, near Tours, about 150 miles, 
the other at Petit Bourg, about 20 miles, from Paris. 

The colony at Mettray was founded in the spirit of the good 
Samaritan, which succors the wounded and forsaken traveller by 
the way-side, takes him home, and there nourishes and cherishes 
him. This establishment grew out of the compassion of two 
gentlemen of high rank and fortune, who were moved to essay 
what could be done for the rescue of unfortunate, condcnmed, 
and vagabond boys, to save them, if possible, from destruction, 
and give them the power of obtaining an honest living. It is 
not consistent with my plan, in this place, to go further into the 
account of the institution, than as a school of agriculture, though 
the directors propose three objects of instruction — to qualify their 
pupils for farmers, sailors, or soldiers. The discipline of the 

* The expense to the government of supporting the three veterinary schools 
is said to be about 492,000 francs, or 100,000 dollars, per annum. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



441 




442 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

institution is military. They have a full-rigged ship of ample 
size in the yard, that boys designed for naval life may here take 
their first practical lessons ; and they have a well-stocked farm 
of five hundred acres, which is under direction to be cultivated 
by the pupils. The institution is situated in a healthy part of 
the country, and near a large market-town. They employ an 
educated and experienced agriculturist as director of the farm. 
The first object is to render it productive, that it may go as far 
as it can be made to go towards defraying the expenses of the 
institution ; the second, to instruct the boys in the best and 
most improved methods of husbandry. The institution had its 
foundation in private subscriptior], and though, in its commence- 
ment, it had many difficulties to struggle with, it has now a firm 
establishment.* Besides a farm, there are connected with the 
institution a large garden, an extensive nursery, and a manufac- 
tory for the fabrication of all the implements, carriages, &c., 
which are used on the farm. The boys are likewise employed 
in the making of the shoes, caps, clothes, and bedding, which 
are required, and many fancjT" articles which serve for sale, and 
give them occupation, when by any circumstances they are pre- 
vented from out-door labor. The number of pupils is at present 
450. It is not intended to keep them after sixteen, but they are 
willing to receive them at the earliest convenient age. I saw 
several not more than six or seven years old. They live in fam- 
ilies of forty or fifty, in separate houses, under the care of a 
respectable man and his wife, who give them their whole time. 
This seemed to me a most judicious provision. They have a 
guardian with them in the fields, who always works with them. 
Many of them have been condemned at courts of justice for some 
petty offence, and many of them, orphans and friendless, have 
been taken up in the streets in a condition of miserable vaga- 
bondage. The discipline of the institution is altogether moral 
and paternal. Confinement, abstinence, solitude, and disgrace, 
constitute the chief pmnshments ; but there are no whips, nor 
blows, nor chains. It has been so far eminently successful. A 



* The Vicomte de Courteillcs gave a largo estate, and M. De Metz, a dis- 
tinguished pliilanthropist and a royal counsellor, besides sacrificing his Jiigh 
situation at court, lives among the children, and gives — tlic greatest of all chari- 
ties, his whole time — his hand, his head, and heart, entirely to this object. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION'. 443 

boy, who had been early famihar with punishments and prisons, 
and now for some time a resident at Mettray, was asked why 
he did not run away from Mettray. His memorable answer 
was, " Because there are no bolts nor bars to prevent me." 

When one looks at the innumerable herds of children, turned, 
as it were, adrift in a great city, not merely tempted, but actually 
instructed, stimulated, and encouraged, in crime, and observes 
them gradually gathering in and borne onwards on the swift 
current with increasing rapidity to the precipice of destruction, 
until escape becomes almost impossible, how can we enough 
admire the combined courage, generosity, and disinterestedness, 
which plunges in that it may rescue some of these wretched 
victims from that frightful fate which seems all but inevitable ? 
I do not know a more beautiful, and scarcely a more touching, 
passage in the Holy Scriptures than that which represents the 
angels in heaven as rejoicing over a repenting and rescued sinner. 
It is, indeed, a ministry worthy of the highest and holiest spirits, 
to which the Supreme Source of all goodness and benevolence 
has imparted any portion of his divine nature. 

If we look at this institution even in a more humble and prac- 
tical view, as affording a good education in the mechanical and 
agricultural arts, its great utility cannot be doubted ; and much 
good seed will be sown here, which, under the blessing of God. 
is sure to return excellent and enduring fruits. 

I should have said before, that there is connected with the 
institution a hospital, which v/as a model of cleanliness, good 
ventilation, and careful attendance ; all the services of which 
were rendered by those indefatigable doers of good, the Sisters 
5f Charity. 

4. Colony at Petit Bourg. — Another institution of a similar 
kind to that at Mettray, is about twenty miles from Paris, at a 
place called Petit Bourg. It was once a palace, built by a profli- 
gate king for a profligate woman, but now is converted into a 
school of charity, — certainly a better use. It is not designed 
for criminals or the condemned, but for vagabond children, fa- 
therless, motherless, and friendless ; and is to be regarded as a 
place for the prevention rather than the cure of crime. The 
farm contains about seventy acres ; and though an expensive 
purchase, and a house much too magnificent for a pauper estab- 



444 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

lishmeiit, yet the large rooms in the house, and the various spa- 
cious appendages, have been easily converted to the useful 
purposes of the institution. The nearness to the capital, where 
the subscribers to the funds principally reside, and therefore can 
have constant access to it, and a quick market for the produce 
in fruit and vegetables, are compensating circumstances for the 
exorbitant cost of the land. No person is received over sixteen 
years of age, or kept beyond twenty-one. The cost of main- 
taining a pupil is twelve pounds sterling — sixty dollars; and 
they are paid for by individual subscribers, or out of the common 
funds. Seventy pupils are now maintained here ; and the appli- 
cations are far beyond their power of receiving. The children 
are trained to agriculture, to gardening in its various branches, 
and some of them to different trades, as tailors, shoemakers, cap- 
makers, blacksmiths, and carpenters. The farming was of a kind 
to be immediately productive, and was well managed. The 
cows at this establishment, as, indeed, in most parts of the Conti- 
nent which I have visited, are soiled, — that is, fed in the stables 
constantly ; and were of a superior description. There were 
two kinds which particularly attracted my attention, under the 
designation of Norman and Flemish. In appearance tmd prom- 
ise I have seldom seen any superior. I could obtain no exact 
returns ; but the Flemish was remarkable for size, and stated to 
be equally remarkable for her product in milk and butter. 

With a view to encourage their exertions, the pupils have a 
portion of their earnings put by at interest, for their benefit ; and 
which they receive, if, at the close of their term, they leave the 
place with honor ; but not if they are dismissed for faults or 
crimes, or if they leave irregularly, and without permission. I 
hope it will not be deemed out of place if I remark here in 
passing, that the discipline of the institution is intended to be 
wholly moral and paternal. Light penalties, which affect the 
mind, and which are designed to operate upon the self-respect of 
the offender, and to affect his character and standing, are found 
much more effectual than any corporal punishments. A public 
com-t, at which the master presides, is held among the pupils 
once a week, when the daily records of the institution are looked 
over. Here the deficient or guilty are called to account by their 
companions, and the penalties decreed. This, which may be 
called a court of honor has proved signally effectual. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 445 

There are, besides Mettray and Petit Boiirg, several other 
institutions on the same plan in different parts of France. They 
cannot be too strongly commended ; and this seems a kind of 
philanthropy without fault. Let me add, with reverence, that 
if it were a mission worthy of a Celestial Messenger to seek and 
to save those who were perishing, what can be more a duty 
than, in our humble measure, to imitate a divine example ? * 

I have deemed it useful to go thus fully into the matter of 
agricultural education in France, as the subject attracts much 
attention in England and the United States. The provision 
made in France for this object is obviously of a most liberal 
character, and the arrangements are made with equal judgment 
and wisdom. 

I pass now to other topics. 

* Some of my readers may be interested in the subjoined anecdote, wliich I 
received from the benevolent director of the establishment : Among the re- 
wards given at the institution, and those, extraordinary as it may seem, most 
coveted and deemed most honorable, are what are called tickets of favor. 
These only entitle the possessor to obtain some mitigation of punishment for an 
offending companion by bearing it himself. In one case, at the strong solicita- 
tion of the parents, a very unmangeable boy had been received into the institu- 
tion. Silence is always strictly enjoined at meal times. This boy, after re- 
peated admonitions, persisted in violating this rule, when a monitor took him by 
the collar in order to remove him from the table. The boy instantly stabbed the 
monitor, so as to endanger his life. For this offence he was sentenced to some 
months' imprisonment and seclusion, upon short allowance. Afler being some 
time confined, the boys solicited his release; the boy who had been wounded 
among the rest, and who had a right to claim a favor. After repeated refusals, 
tlie master at length consented, upon condition that the boy who had been 
v/ounded should take his place, and suffer out the time which remained to com- 
plete his sentence. This being agreed to, and the wounded boy taking the 
place and the penalties of the criminal, the culprit was appointed to the duty of 
attending upon him by carrying him his food. The confined boy finished the 
time to which the criminal had been sentenced. In the mean while, the culprit, 
witnessing the sufferings of the boy whom he had injured, and his magnanimity 
in undertaking to suffer for him, and the kind and forgiving conduct of the 
whole school towards him, was so deeply affected by it, that it appeared to have 
worked an entire reformation of character, and he became and had continued for 
a long time one of the best boys in the school. 
VOL. II. 38 



446 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



CXXVI. — CROPS. 

The crops cultivated in France are the usual cereal grains, 
wheat, rye, barley, and oats ; but what may be called the pecu- 
liar crops, yielding an immense pecuniary value, are wine, silk, 
and sugar. 

1. Wheat. — In gross amount, the wheat grown in France 
constitutes an immense crop. With the exception of Russia, 
from which no accurate statistical returns have been obtained, 
and in European Russia comparatively little wheat is grown, the 
bread used being chiefly of rye, it is stated, that more than half 
of the wheat grown in Europe is produced in France. From 
the best statistical accounts that can be obtained, the wheat 
annually produced in the United Kingdom, 

England, Scotland, Ireland, is . 111,081,320 bushels. 
In France it is 198,660,000 " 

The amount of seed ordinarily sown to the acre is from two 
to three bushels. The return of crop for the seed sown is repre- 
sented as, in the best districts, averaging 6-25 for one ; in the 
least productive, 5-40 for one ; but the mean average return for 
the seed in the principal wheat-growing departments is reckoned 
at 6-07 for one. These accounts must be considered as uncer- 
tain. Any person having experience in the case, knows how 
difficult is even an approach to accuracy. My readers may be 
curious to know the calculations which have been made in regard 
to some other countries in this matter. 



NORTH EUROPE. 

Countries. Year. 

Sweden and Norway, . . . 1838 

Denmark, 1827 

Russia, a good harvest, . . . 1819 

, Province of Tambof, . 1821 

, Provinces north of 50° 

latitude, 1821 



ncrease 


for seed sown. 


4-50 


for 


one. 


6 


ii 


(( 


5 


11 


(( 


4-50 


a 


u 



CROPS. 



447 



Countries. Year. 

Poland, 1826 

England, 1830 

Scotland, 1830 

Ireland, 1825 

Holland, 1828 

Belgium, 1828 

Bavaria, 1827 

Prussia, 1817 

Austria, 1812 

Hungary, 1812 

Switzerland, 1825, lands of an inferior 

quality, 8 ; of the best quality, 12. 
France, inferior lands, 3 ; best lands, 6. 



Increase for i 


eed sown 


. . 8 


for 


one. 


. . 9 


u 


a 


. . 8 


a 


li 


. . 10 


a 


ic 


. . 7-50 


a 


a 


. . 11 


a 


c. 


. . 7 to 8 


u 


a 


. . 6 


a 


u 


. . 7-05 


a 


a 


. . 4 


<c 


L'. 


quality, 3 ; 


of 


a gooc 



Increase 


for seed sown 


. . 6 


for 


one. 


. . 10 






. . 10 






. . 15 






. . 4 to 5 






. . 15 







CENTRAL EUROPE. 

Countries. Year. 

Spain, 1828 

Portugal, 1786 

Tuscany, — 

Plains of Lucca, — 

Piedmont. Plains of Marengo, — 

Bologna, — =- 

Roman States. Pontine Marshes, 20; ordinary lands, 8. 
Kingdom of Naples — best districts, 20 ; ordinary lands, 8. 
iMalta — the best lands, 38 to 64 ; ordinary lands, 22, 25, 30.* 

It is obvious how difficult it must be to arrive in this case at 
any thing like exactness. The quantity of seed employed on 
the same extent of land is very different in diiferent countries, 
but the product cannot always bear the above proportions to the 
amount sown. That I may be understood, let us look at Malta, 
where a return of 64 for one is given for the best lands. Are 
we to infer that in such case, if two bushels were sown to an 
acre, the ordinary proportion in France, the product would be 
128 bushels per acre ? or, if three bushels were sown, as in the 
best cultivation in England, the crop would be 192 bushels ? In 



* Statistique des Cereales de la France, par M. A. Moreau de Jonnes. Pans, 
1843. 



448 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Ancient Egypt, the return is represented as 100 for one ; in By- 
zantium, as 150 for one ; in Ancient Libya, as 300 for one. No 
certain conclusions can be founded upon such statements. The 
distinguished traveller, M. Humboldt, states the average product 
of wheat in Mexico as 25 to 30 for one, and this on table-land 
elevated 8000 feet above the sea ; and that, even on large farms, 
he found it 50 and 65 for one. In the Antilles he states the 
production of maize, or Indian corn, as 300 for one. But I have 
seen in several cases in New England, in the culture of Indian 
corn, a return of 400 for one ; that is to say, the hills being three 
feet apart each way, a peck of Indian corn would be sufficient 
seed for an acre. If 100 bushels of grain are in such case pro- 
duced on an acre, — and this sometimes happens, — this is clearly 
a return of 400 for one. 

Of the average yield of wheat in France it is not possible to 
form a conclusion on which entire reliance may be placed. 
Until a very large district can be taken, and the crops and land 
actually measured, no certainty can be attained ; and then of course 
it must vary much in different climates, or expositions in differ- 
ent seasons, and under different modes of culture. At present it 
is altogether matter of conjecture, and it would be difficult to 
find two men of independent judgment who would agree in the 
case. The average yield in England I have heard stated by 
men of political standing, claiming to be well informed on the 
subject, at not more than fifteen bushels per acre. An eminent 
agricultural writer placed it at eighteen bushels some years 
since ; men of sanguine temperament rate it at over thirty 
bushels. These evidently are wholly conjectural estimates. In 
Prance it is stated in the best districts to average twenty-two 
bushels. This rests upon similar authority. It would be of 
immense importance to any government to know the exact 
product grown in any country or district, or in the whole coun- 
try ; and this might be obtained by compelling, on the part 
of the owner or cultivator, an actual return of his crop ; but it is 
of little use to found such returns on estimates purely conjectu- 
ral. There is another point in respect to this cultivation which 
the agricultural societies might obtain, and which would be of 
great importance ; that is, first, the smallest yield ordinarily 
obtained, and, next, the largest yield actually obtained, with a 
detailed history of the culture in each case ; the causes of the 



CROPS. 449 

inferiority in the former, and of the superiority in the latter, as 
far as they can be ascertained. Rehictant as most men are to 
state them, yet, as much benefit may be derived from a knowl- 
edge of tlie causes of failure as of success ; and in the latter 
case, every one must see the importance of knowing what can 
be done, that every stimulus may be given to an emulation 
Avhich in agriculture is always wholesome, and a great instru- 
ment of success. In England, fifty bushels per acre were 
reported to me, on the best authority, as the yield upon a large 
farm in a very favorable season. More than eighty bushels have 
been reported, upon what is deemed ample testimony, to the 
Royal Society of England, as the product of a single acre.* In 
France I have had, upon the best authority, reports of forty 
bushels, forty-four bushels, and seventy-two bushels. It is be- 
yond all doubt that the crops in England have, within a few 
years, considerably increased ; and, by the official returns in 
France, where much pains have been taken to render them 
accurate, it appears that within eighty years, while the popula- 
tion has increased in the proportion of twenty-one to thirty-three 
millions, the production of wheat has more than doubled ; which 
shows an improvement in the comforts of the people. It is 
further stated, upon good authority, that the product of an acre 
of land is ordinarily double what it was three fourths of a cen- 
tury ago ; which shows a most gratifying improvement in the 
agriculture of the kingdom. It is an instructive fact, that the 
product of wheat in France has increased sixty-three per cent, 
since the close of Napoleon's wars — a fact which shows, in a 
most striking manner, the interruption which war brings into 
the useful arts of life, and the privations and wretchedness 
which are sure to follow in its train. 

There have been in France, as every where else, discussions 
as to the origin of wheat, many persons maintaining that it is an 
inferior plant in its natural state, and that its present condition is 



' It is almost impossible to get any exact return from an English tenant- 
farmer of his products, for the reason that he will give no occasion to liis land- 
lord to raise his rent. In countries where the amount produced is a subject 
of such great importance, and whore the population is pressing so hard upon the 
supply, an accurate return of the yearly product should be induced by some 
pecuniary encouragement, or otherwise made compulsory. 
38* 



450 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the result of artificial cultivation. The speculation will do 
neither harm nor good. There is little reason for the supposition; 
and it seems extraordinary that similar changes are never wit- 
nessed at the present day. It is certain that the wheat cultivated 
at the present time does not ditfer from that found in the pyra- 
mids of Egypt. 

There are nearly thirty different kinds of wheat cultivated in 
France, including both autumn and spring varieties. In respect 
to this distinction, there is little doubt that, by a careful selection 
of the earliest ripe, after a time, the autumn may be converted 
into a spring wheat ; and the spring wheat, being repeatedly 
sown in the autumn, would presently lose its properties of early 
ripening. It would be imprudent to prescribe any particular 
species for universal or for general use, as the different kinds are 
adapted to different localities, some being much earlier than 
others, and therefore, though yielding a less product, ripening 
before the droughts of summer, and escaping, in some degree, 
the dangers of blight ; and others being more susceptible to 
injury from frost. The white wheat of Flanders is a highly 
esteemed variety ; and is said to be the same as a wheat known 
in England by the names of the Eclipse wheat, the Wellington, 
and the Talavera. It is highly productive and beautiful, and is 
particularly suited to lands of the richest quality. The white 
wheat of Provence is pronounced the most excellent variety for 
the quality of its grain ; its straw is very tender, and therefore 
liable to be lodged; and it is too delicate for a cold climate. 
The Lammas wheat is of an excellent quality ; early in its 
ripening; it sheds its grain easily in the field; it therefore 
requires to be cut early. It is very susceptible to injury from 
cold. These are all winter wheats ; but what is called a spring 
M'heat in Europe is a wheat which should be sown in February ; 
whereas, in the United States, that only is called a spring wheat 
which may be sown, with a surety of its ripening, in any part 
of March or April. 

The Tuscan wheat, used in the manufacture of the celebrated 
and beautiful Leghorn bonnets, is a spring wheat, with very 
short heads, and produces little grain. The Victoria wheat, of 
a good quality, and brought to France from Colombia in South 
America, and represented as ripening in sixty days, was not 
found, in France, in advance of the common wheats of the coun- 



CROPS. 451 

try. I imported, some years since, a wheat from Spain, highly 
commended for its rapid growth and early maturity, but in these 
respects it showed no superiority over the kinds ordinarily culti- 
vated in the country. 

We are already, in the United States, in possession of many 
beautiful kinds of wheat. I can only add, if we could import a 
few of the French bakers to instruct us in the useful and impor- 
tant art of making bread, it might prove a signal advantage. I 
believe nowhere is so good bread to be found as in France ; and 
this, not in the cities only, but throughout the country ; even at 
the meanest village tavern you will ordinarily find bread of the 
best quality. 

The Egyptian wheat, which I have seen growing several 
times in the United States, and which is known by its producing 
several heads upon the same stalk, is highly productive on rich 
land. Its flour, however, is not highly esteemed. It does not 
well bear the cold. It is liable to degenerate, and to produce, at 
last, only one head. 

A large portion of the soil of France is unfavorable to wheat, 
from its excessive dryness. Though, beyond doubt, a soil par- 
tially calcareous is favorable to wheat, yet this quality in excess 
is unfavorable. The soil for wheat cannot be too good, though 
it would seem as though there were exceptions to this remark in 
some of the rich alluvions of the West ; but it may be made too 
rich by manure, and especially by manure applied in too green a 
state. It is in general the custom to apply the manure to the 
previous crop, though in many cases, and especially where liquid 
manure is attainable, it is applied immediately before the sowing 
of the crop. This was particularly the case in the instance 
which I have given, of seventy-two bushels being produced to 
an acre. 

A naked fallow is sometimes resorted to in France, especially 
where the land abounds in weeds, and more particularly the 
squitch-grass,* which peculiarly infests the old lands in Europe. 
The quantity sometimes collected from land, in what are called 
even good farming districts, is surprisingly great, and would lead 
one to infer, in some cases, that it was the principal crop grown. 

As to the crop which is deemed best to precede wheat, I shall 

* Triiicum repeiis. 



452 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

give the opinions of the best farmers in one of the best cultivated 
districts in Prance. Wiiere tobacco has grown, wheat succeeds 
to great advantage. Tlie cultivation for tobacco is clean and 
careful, and the manuring abundant. Wheat follows hemp with 
equal success, because the cultivation of hemp is equally clean 
with that of tobacco, and it is even more strongly manured ; but 
the straw of wheat which follows hemp is not so abundant as 
after tobacco. Wheat after cabbage yields less straw than after 
some other crops, but more grain.* Beans are by some farmers 
regarded as a crop propitious to wheat, but not so favorable as 
those crops to which I have referred ; and by others it is believed 
to produce less grain, and that of an inferior quality. After 
Indian corn, the wheat gives a good grain, but an inferior amount 
of straw ; but in some localities it is represented as giving an 
equally good product in grain and straw. After lucern, wheat is 
cultivated to great advantage ; the lucern strikes a deep tap-root, 
which greatly enriches the ground when it is turned in. Wheat 
succeeds well after clover, if the clover is good ; if the clover is 
poor, the crop of wheat is likely to be inferior, which is in other 
words only saying, if the land is rich, the crop will be good ; if 
in poor condition, the result will correspond. Potatoes are gen- 
erally condemned as a crop to precede wheat. In parts of 
France where wheat is grown every second year, potatoes are 
frequently the intermediate crop ; and then the wheat, as well 
as the potatoes, are manured. After turnips, wheat is stated to 
be richer in straw than in grain. The rotation differs in many 
places, sometimes wheat occurring every other year, and some- 
times only twice in six years. 

I cannot look upon these various statements with all the con- 
fidence which some persons place in them. A presumption is 
always in favor of the general and long-continued practice of 
any country ; yet it is far from being an infallible test of what 
is good or best, because it is by no means certain to be the result 
of experiments carefully made, and as carefully noted. Two or 
three great points, however, seem to be fully settled ; that the 
land for wheat cannot be too deeply cultivated, nor too 



* " It is calculated that 120 sheaves of wheat grown after cabbages, will 
give more grain than 150 sheaves grown after tobacco." — Scherwz, Culture 
fPAlsace. 



CROPS. 



453 



thoroughly manured, in the crop of the preceding year; and 
that it cannot be too thoroughly cleaned. Mr. Coke, of England, 
afterwards Lord Leicester, offered a large reward to any person 
who would discover a single weed among his crops, after their 
usual cleaning. The wheat plant sends out descending, as well 
as lateral roots. After land has been thus well prepared, it is 
not deemed best to plough more than two or three inches for the 
sowing of wheat. By many persons, in climates where the frost 
heaves the land deeply, it is deemed best to cover the seed of 
autumn-sown wheat by the plough. Where the land has been 
ploughed in the autumn, it is advised only to harrow the land in 
the spring, and harrow in the seed upon land thus prepared, and 
press it closely with a roller. Land is frequently, after being 
sown, trodden by men, but better by sheep — a practice to which 
I have referred in my remarks upon English husbandry. 

In England, certainly by all the best farmers, wheat is sown in 
drills with a machine. These machines are in general, like 
many of the agricultural implements of England, where they 
admit of being so, heavy, complicated, and expensive ; but they 
do their work in an admirable manner ; and many of them are 
contrived so as to sow the manure, when in a state of powder, at 
the same time as the seed. Many of the French farmers sow 
their wheat in drills, and by a machine, but not of a very im- 
proved character. In Switzerland I found drill machines, invent- 
ed and made in the country, not expensive, which certaialy 
performed their work well. Experiments have been made in 
France of planting wheat in hills, six inches or more apart, by a 
hoe ; making the hole, and dropping several seeds in the hill, as 
Indian corn is often planted in the United States. There must 
be obviously a great saving of seed by this mode ; and the re- 
sult has been pronounced successful ; but I have not been able 
to get fall information. It was said to be by this mode that a 
crop of seventy-two bushels to the acre was produced. The 
crop, while growing, was manured with liquid manure, and was 
kept thoroughly clean. This resembles somewhat the mode of 
planting by a dibble in England. Such a mode would, at first 
siajht, be strongly objected to in the United States, because of 
the labor which it would require. There is often a difficulty in 
the United States of procuring labor for any consideration ; but, 
other tilings being equal, a wise farmer Avould not ask simply 



454 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

what the labor would cost, but whether the result would com- 
pensate the labor. 

The quantity of seed sown to an acre is ordinarily two 
bushels, more frequently less than more. The quantity depends 
somewhat upon the nature of the soil, a larger quantity being 
sown upon inferior than upon good soils. Somewhat depends 
likewise upon the time of sowing. If sown early in September, 
the plants have a longer time to grow, and tiller more abundantly 
than if sowed later. Early in September is the time ordinarily 
recommended for sowing wheat, where the previous crop can 
be got off and the ground be made ready. In situations where 
the winter is severe, late sowing is strongly recommended, so 
that the wheat may make little or no progress before the early 
spring. In this way the crop is secured from the injury of the 
frost, which, when it destroys the young lateral roots, is ex- 
tremely unfavorable, if not destructive, to the crop. The wheat 
crop does not suffer from the severity of the cold where it is 
uninterrupted, but from alternate freezings and thawings. When 
the ground is expanded by the frost, the small roots of the young 
plants are broken and mutilated, and the plants, being often 
thrown out of the ground, perish. 

The diseases common to wheat in the United States are 
equally common in Europe — the smut, the rust, and the mildew. 
A remedy, or rather preventive, of the first, in almost all cases 
successful, is well known in the United States — the washing 
wheat in brine, and sprinkling it with lime. Probably the only 
advantage of the brine over simple water is, that its adhesive 
nature makes the lime stick to the seed. A solution of green 
copperas is equally efiectual ; and sometimes arsenic is used. 
The last is objectionable, from the danger of having the sub- 
stance about the premises. The wheat may be prepared two or 
three days before sowing, but it nmst not be allowed to become 
heated. If laid in a heap upon the floor, it should be occasion- 
ally stirred. 

The rust and the mildew seem mainly due to atmospheric 
causes. When the wheat is particularly forced by alternate 
sunshine and rain, attended with extreme heat, when every 
species of vegetation is urged to the top of its speed, and espe- 
cially where the land itself is very rich and the air stagnant or 
confined, it seems as if more sap were forced into the plant than 



CROPS, 455 

it could dispose of, the vessels burst, and the plant in truth dies 
of repletion. My own experience and observation seem fully to 
confirm this theory. The blight of mildew is a different affec- 
tion. The causes are not well ascertained, and the preventives 
equally undetermined. A distinguished German clergyman or 
pastor, — and I may be allowed to add, in passing, that to no pro- 
fession has agriculture been more indebted for its improvements, — 
after long and careful observation, is of opinion, that three causes 
may produce it — the state of the atmosphere, when the plant is 
in a particular stage of its growth ; an unfortunate choice of the 
time of sowing ; or the particular condition of the soil. He has 
found that, in the same neighborhood, the wheat in some fields 
has been badly affected, while in others it has escaped the mil- 
dew. This circumstance seems opposed to the atmospheric 
theory ; yet in the same country, the state of the atmosphere 
may be different in different positions and aspects of the field. 
Every one must have experienced this in passing along a public 
road in an evening ; without a thermometer we become sensible, 
in different places, to great variations of temperature. With us 
in New England late-sown peas seldom escape the mildew, or 
what is called the blue mould, which has seemed to me attributa- 
ble to the heat of our autumnal midday sun, followed by the 
chilliness of our autumnal evenings and their abundant dews. 
The same theory may account for the facts which he mentions 
in regard to sowing. He has sown wheat in September, which 
has suffered slightly from mildew; in October, in the same year, 
which has suffered severely ; in November, which has entirely 
escaped. The circumstances in these cases are not all given. 
It is, therefore, difficult to make up a judgment ; but one would 
infer that the late-sown wheat was carried beyond the suscepti- 
ble season. The influence which the condition of the soil may 
have upon the health of the plant in this matter, or how far it 
may be affected by the manure employed, are points not deter- 
mined. In one district in Alsace it is said the farmers find their 
wheat liable to suff"er from mildew, when it follows clover 
which has been highly manured; but the manure customarily 
used in this case is the manure of hogs, to which some are dis- 
posed to attribute this result. Nothing seems more uncertain, or 
rather more imperfectly defined, than agricultural facts, excepting 
it be agricultural theories. In order safely to deduce a valuable 



45b EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

or practical truth from facts, the facts must be accurately and ex- 
actly determined and observed; but few men have this patience 
of observation. All the circumstances under which they occur, 
Hkewise, should be known and considered. Few men have the 
capacity to discover and comprehend them ; and, in many cases. 
It must be confessed that, in our present state of knowledge, 
they are with difficulty ascertained. This disorder is clearly not 
propagated as smut is ; and liming the seed has no effect in pre- 
venting it. This farmer is of the opinion that it does not depend 
upon the manure employed ; at the same time he is in favor of 
turning in a crop of clover as manure for wheat, rather than to 
apply animal manure. Some persons confound the diseases of 
rust and mildew. The result is much the same, the crop being 
in both cases nearly ruined; but the appearances are different. 
In the case of rust, the wheat becomes suddenly attacked and the 
stalks covered with literally a red rust, the grain ceases to fill, 
and becomes shrivelled. In the case of mildew, the plants 
become covered with a whitish mould, and the stalks themselves 
become discolored in various places, and turn black, as in a 
limb where mortification has taken place. 

I have obtained no information as to what is called in the 
United States the Hessian fly, from the eggs being supposed 
to have been brought to the United States by the Hessian 
soldiers, who were the mercenaries of the British government in 
the American revolution. I cannot learn that it is known here. 
The grasshoppers, or, as they are here called, the locusts, become 
destructive to a wheat crop, when the grass fails in the fields. 
The grain-worm, of which I have given an account in my State 
Reports, and in other publications, does not appear to be known 
on the Continent, though they have heretofore suffered from it 
in England.* Such scourges seem often temporary or periodical. 

* I believe there is an effectual remedy against tliis destructive insect, under 
whose ravages I have known the most promising crops completely ruined. The 
fly, from whose egg this insect or worm is generated, appears first at the time 
when the wheat is in flower. If at that time the growing crop is slightly 
sprinkled with newly-slaked lime sown broadcast over it, it will commonly 
save the crop. It will either prevent the fly depositing his egg, or by its caus- 
ticity it will destroy it. The mode is of no importance, compared with the result. 
The destruction of tlie crop is not evident until the time for har\'est; and then, 
though the external appearance may be perfect, there will be found in tiie grain 
or kernel a small yellow worm or maggot, which has completely destroyed it. 



CROPS. 457 

I liave spoken of the quantity and the preparation of the seed. 
It is said by some that shrunken seed, or seed imperfectly ripened, 
will germinate and serve for another crop as well as that which 
is perfectly sound. I believe it may be considered as an estab- 
lished axiom, that perfect seed is always to be preferred to that 
which has any defect. In many provinces new wheat is always 
preferred for sowing ; but many experienced farmers advise to 
sow wheat which is a year old, as a security against smut ; for 
though the crop may have been smutty, tVoni which the seed in 
such case is taken, the smutted ears ai'e said, in the course of the 
year, to lose their germinating power, and do not communicate 
the disease to those grains with which they come in contact. A 
farmer, however, can hardly excuse himself for neglecting to 
take the prescribed precautions against smut in the preparation 
of the seed, which have been usually found effectual ; and it is 
obvious that if old seed is used in preference to new, a larger 
quantity is required to guard against the failure of such as have 
become effete. In some provinces, they deem it necessary to 
change their seed once in two or three years. But the reason 
given by some persons for this practice is, that the cultivation in 
these departments is slovenly and negligent, and so the wheat 
degenerates. I think experiments have fully demonstrated, as 
applicable to all plants, that where the cultivation is good, and 
the kind itself good, we have only carefully to select from year 
to year the very best for seed, and there will be found no neces- 
sity for changing the seed ; and the crop itself will be likely 
continually to improve. In some cases, and especially where 
the cold is severe and the winds are strong, it is advised to 
plough in the seed wheat to the depth of about three inclies. 
The best cultivators advise this always, especially where the 
lands are light ; but it is a slovenly mode, as practised by some, 
to sow it upon the stubble of a preceding crop, and merely har- 
row it in. If nothing else, the benefit arising from the decayed 
stubble or the clover, when turned under as manure, is thus 
almost wholly lost. Wheat which is to be sown on a clover 
stubble * is advised to be sown two or three weeks earlier than 



* Wheat manured by turning in a green vegetable crop, is supposed to have 
less strength, and is therefore more apt to become lodged, than that grown aftei- 
a crop which has been manured with rich animal manure. The occasion of the 
v^oL. II. 39 



458 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

that which is sown after tobacco or hemp, that it may gain 
strength ; and it is the custom where wheat is sown after tobac- 
co, to spread the stalks of the tobacco crop upon the field, where 
they remain until the spring, when they are removed. I do 
not know the advantage of this, unless as a protection against 
the cold. 

Nothing is more prejudicial to the success of a wheat crop, 
than excess of wet ; either stagnant on the surface, or in the 
soil. I have as yet met with no cases of underdraining or sub- 
soiling in France, but the value of this immense improvement 
will presently be understood. Where the soil is clayey and wet, 
wheat is sowed in beds or stitches, and the drains between them 
kept clear. Experiments have been made in some parts of France 
for the irrigation of wheat, and with success, where a porous 
soil or a sufficient drainage immediately carried off the water ; 
but of coarse it operated most injuriously where the soil or the 
surface retained too much wet. 

The cultivation of spring wheat, unless the land is prepared 
in the autumn, is liable to many objections. The spring season 
is crowded with labors which must then be accomplished or not 
at all. Land ploughed in the autumn, which is, from its posi- 
tion or the nature of the soil, liable to retain the water of winter, 
is difficult to be worked even by the harrow in the spring, and 
in an unhealthy condition for being sowed. Spring wheat, 
though making an equally good flour, and for some purposes 
more esteemed than any other, seldom yields so abundant a crop 
as autumn-sown wheat. 

In some instances, wheat is carefully weeded and cleaned in 
the spring ; but this, in examples under my observation, has not 
been executed by a machine, nor very perfectly done. Nothing 
can be more beautiful than the cultivation, in some parts of Eng- 
land and Scotland, where wheat is sown in perfectly straight 
lines by a machine, and then carefully cleaned by a horse-hoe. 
Though I have seen good crops of wheat in France, the cultiva- 
tion iti numerous cases was far from being clean. When the 



stalk of wheat being tender, and the wlicat therefore more liable to fall, is said 
to be owing to a deficiency of silex in the soil. But there are few soils where 
this deficiency exists. I give these opinions as opinions resting upon respec- 
table authority, but without vouching for them. 



CROPS. 459 

early-sown wheat is far advanced in the spring, it is sometimes 
mowed ; but this practice is not approved. It is sometimes fed 
down by sheep, and with great advantage ; but it is advised not 
to put horned cattle upon it. This feeding of the wheat should 
be done, however, only when the crop is very luxuriant, and 
before May. 

The wheat is sometimes manured in the spring on the surface, 
where liquid manure is easily obtained. Ashes, wood ashes, 
either crude or leeched ashes, are applied to wheat with the 
greatest benefit. This is done in the spring, when the wheat is 
harrowed. The harrowing of wheat in the spring, when it is a 
few inches in height, is practised and strongly commended by 
the best farmers. I have full confidence from experience in its 
utility. In England, where the wheat is cleaned and cultivated 
by a horse-hoe or scarifier, this is an effectual substitute ; but 
where wheat is not cleaned by a machine, or where it is sown 
broadcast, the practice of harrowing it with an iron-tooth harrow 
of considerable weight, and that two or three times, is strongly 
commended. This practice is said to have been suggested by 
accident to a common farmer, who, having sown clover upon his 
wheat in the spring, was afraid that in some cases the seed would 
not take, and ventured to harrow it in. He found, to his surprise, 
that the wheat which he had harrowed was much superior, in the 
end, to that which the harrow had not passed over. It is a gen- 
eral practice, in some of the districts of France, to sow clover in 
the spring upon the wheat. This is a well-known practice in 
parts of New England, where it is sown upon the snow ; and, I 
am sorry to add, sown in many cases in the chaff from the barn- 
floor, when, of course, a variety of weeds and worthless plants 
are sown with it. The dung of domestic birds, pigeons, or barn- 
door fowls, where it can be obtained, is sown witli much advan- 
tage upon the growing wheat in the spring. 

Where spring wheat is sown upon land ploughed in the 
autumn, which has not suffered from wetness, it is not necessary 
to replough it, but to put the seed in simply with a harrow and 
a roller. It has seemed to me that the European farmers some- 
times labor their lands too much, as in turning in a clover or 
stubble crop, or a grass sward, they take pains to break the sward, 
and bring all the vegetable matter to the surface, to be burnt in 
some cases, or to be dried and exhaled in others, instead of leav- 



460 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ing it to its natural decay under the soil, and its conversion into 
food for the growing crop. They are hardly aware of the amount 
of this vegetable matter, as demonstrated by an eminent farmer 
in New England, and a farmer who would be eminent any 
where, who found, by actual measurement and calculation, that 
the vegetable matter in a common closely fed, field, or meadow, 
weighing the roots as well as the tops, amounted in an acre to 
full thirteen tons.* 

The manures applied to wheat are a matter of great impor- 
tance. Different wheats, or wheats grown in different localities, 
differ very much in their nutritious properties, or in the quantity 
of good bread which can be obtained from them. The valuable 
and nutritious qualities of wheat are supposed to depend on the 
proportionate quantity of gluten and albumen which it contains. 
This is ascribed by many persons to the nature of the soil in 
which it has grown, and to the kind of manure which has been 
applied to it. This theory is altogether probable, and perhaps 
sufficiently established to induce us to act in reference to it ; and, 
therefore, to apply manures which are likely to contribute to the 
growing plant the elements required. But many other things 
may come into operation, such especially as the climate and 
temperature, and other influences which are as yet imperfectly 
understood by us. The quantity of flour yielded by different 
wheats varies considerably, as the millers well understand. A 
distinguished French chemist, in examining 21 different kinds 
of wheat, found that the average yield in flour was as 79 of fari- 
naceous matter to 100 pounds of crude grain. But this flour 
diftered very much in its constituents in difterent kinds of grain. 
In actual nutritious matter, the difference in different wheats was 
found to be as 14 to 21. These were wheats grown in dif- 
tere?it countries and different latitudes. If this difference de- 
pended wholly upon climate, it would of course be entirely 
beyond our control. 

In wine countries, it is known that in different localities the 
same species of grape produces a wine of an altogether different 
quality and value from what it does in others. The kind of 
grape, the mode of culture, the degree of ripeness, the mode of 
making the wine, the age of the wine, and, doubtless in many 

* Mr. Phinney, of Lexington, Massachusetts. 



CROPS. 461 

cases, various artificial processes, affect to a degree the quality 
of the wine produced ; but, beyond all this, there is something 
in the locality which is believed to determine its character. The 
celebrated wine, known as Constantia, is the product of a very 
limited territory at the Cape of Good Hope. In passing up tlie 
Rhine, there was pointed out to me the estate of Prince Metter- 
nich, where the celebrated Johannisberg wine is produced ; and 
it is produced nowhere else ; and from this circumstance its pro- 
duction is a source of immense profit. These facts seem to 
demonstrate the truth of the reply made always to my inquiries 
in relation to the subject, that there is something as yet unascer- 
tained, some peculiarity in the climate, aspect, or soil, from which 
the product derived its characteristic properties. The same or 
similar circumstances may operate upon the quality of wheat ; 
and it is obvious, as far as they are strictly local, dependent upon 
the climate and aspect, or upon any peculiarities of the soil which 
do not exist any where else, or upon any causes as yet unascer- 
tained, they are beyond our reach. 

But that the qualities of the wheat grown depend to a consid- 
erable degree upon the kind of manure employed, there can be 
no doubt. Some experiments, in reference to this matter, made 
by a German farmer, may be interesting to my readers. 

Wheats manured as underneath produced as below : — 

Gluten. Starch. 



1. 


With human urine, . . 


. . 351 . 


. 39-3 


2. 


li 


oxen's 


blood, . . . 


. . 34-2 . 


. 41-3 


3. 


a 


human excrements, 


. . 331 . 


. 411 


4. 


a 


dung 


of sheep. 


. . 22-9 . 


. 42-8 


5. 


li 


a 


goats. 


. . 32-9 . 


. 42-4 


6. 


li 


c: 


horses, 


. . 13-7 . 


. 61-6 


7. 


u 


a 


pigeons, . 


. . 12-2 . 


. 632 


8. 


li 


a 


cows, . . 


. . 120 . 


. 62-3 


9. 


Soil not manured, . . . 


. . 9-2 . 


. 66-7* 



I am unable to say how far these experiments are to be 
depended on ; and how far they have been confirmed by other 
experiments made with the same intention. Two things are 



* Cours d'Agriciilture, par Gasparin. 
39* 



462 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

quite remarkable in respect to them ; the one is the different 
qualities of grain grown with manures of the greatest efficacy, 
and that grown without any manure, being a difference of nine 
and thirty-five ; and the comparatively low result of pigeon's 
dung, which is generally rated very highly, and supposed to take 
its place with guano. The manner in which the animals whose 
manure was used for these experiments were fed, is a circumstance 
which may have materially affected the results ; for the qualities 
of the manure of the same animals, under different courses of 
feeding, may be expected to be composed of different elements, 
and so to give difierent results ; so complicated necessarily are all 
experiments of this kind. 

The farmers in France are behind no others in what may be 
called, technically, agricultural science ; and some of those emi- 
nent men, who are sometimes called farmers of the closet, have 
gone into the most exact and minute mathematical calculations 
as to the actual amount of certain mineral elements, which are 
supposed essential to the growth of the crop, or of any particular 
crop ; and next, as to the amount of these mineral substances, 
which any particular crop carries off in the straw, and in the 
grain. They then proceed to determine the exact amount of 
these substances, which must be restored to the soil in order to 
keep up its fertility. The first point is determined by analyzing 
with great chemical exactness a portion of the soil ; the second, 
by analyzing a portion of the crop, of the straw, and the grain • 
and these premises being obtained, the third is of course matter 
of plain inference. These calculations are curious and ingenious, 
and if vegetation or the growth of plants were as simple an affair, 
and as well and as easily understood as many pretend that it is, 
these facts would have a most direct and immediately practical 
bearing. One of the most eminent of these calculators, however, 
himself admits that the application of these facts, or rather the 
rules deduced from them, is an operation difficult, delicate, and 
which only the most skilful persons can undertake.* 

In the present very imperfect state of our knowledge of vege- 
tation, I am free to express my conviction, that they will answer 
no other purpose than that of mere curiosity and amusement. In 
the analysis of a soil, for example, if we suppose that a cubic 



* Gasparin's Course of Agriculture, vol. iii. p. 405. 



CROPS. 463 

foot is taken, this may be a very inadequate representative of 
other parts of the field. If the soil is taken from the surface, or 
that part of the soil which is cultivated, yet there is the soil 
under this, into which the roots of the plant may extend them- 
selves, and which may contain elements of which we are not 
apprized. In the chemical analysis of a soil, it is known, like- 
wise, that much of the active portion, all the vegetable portion, 
is dissipated by heat, and no account is obtained of it but by the 
loss in weight. The analysis of a soil, likewise, though it may 
give all its component parts, is sure to destroy their combination, 
and disturb the relations which they held to each other. There 
is another great omission in this case. Notwithstanding all the 
analyses which have been given of soils and products, where the 
amount of mineral elements removed has been most particularly 
determined, yet I have met with no instance of the analysis of a 
soil immediately after the removal of the crop ; by which, on 
comparison with its condition at the time of sowing, the actual 
loss could be detected. This is a great desideratum, which we 
may hope will presently be supplied. 

A great many exact calculations have been made in reference 
to the weight of straw compared with the weight of grain, and 
the weight of stubble, when wheat is reaped with a sickle, com- 
pared with the whole weight of grain and straw. These results 
must, in different cases, be so aftected by the seasons and soil, 
by the amount of crop, by the time which the plant has had to 
mature itself in, by the height at which the grain is cut, and by 
the condition of the straw when dry, that it would be difficult 
to draw any practical rule from them. In ten different experi- 
ments made in reference to this point, which have been shown 
me, no two agree. 

In respect to the manures proper for wheat, I shall say some- 
thing in another place. Every one seems to acknowledge the 
value of potassium, the principle which is found in common wood 
ashes. This accords with the result of my own experience and 
observation ; for when called upon, in the way of my official 
duty, to examine the modes of cultivation and manuring, in no 
less than thirty-six hundred experiments in the culture of wheat, 
I found that wherever ashes were used upon the field, their effi- 
cacy was emphatically commended. The chemical analysis of 
wheat, taking straw and grain together, gives only a small pro- 



464 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

portion of this principle in the whole mass, such as 2 parts in 
300 ; but this seems evidently indispensable. Whether it is 
absolutely necessary in a certain proportion, as food of the plant, 
or whether it operates in preparing other matters in the soil to 
become food for it, I shall not presume even to give an opinion. 
I must submit to minds qualified by the high attainments of 
science, to follow out inquiries so subtile, and at the same time 
so curious. 

I have occupied the attention of my readers a long time on the 
subject of the culture of wheat, because of its immense impor- 
tance. In the United States we cannot be said as yet to have 
known want; but in the years 1812 and 1816 there was, 
throughout the whole of New England, an almost entire failure 
of the crop of Indian corn ; and it was not until such experience 
came upon us that many persons were fully sensible how much 
and how essentially this product entered into our daily wants. 
The wheat crop has become infinitely more important, for, with 
the exception of the slave states, I do not know a district of the 
country where it does not form by far the principal food of the 
population. But one has need to have lived in Europe through 
a famine to know the immense importance of any great and 
general article of subsistence ; and the suffering among the mass 
of the community, which follows even its scarcity, still more the 
miseries and horrors which its total loss brings upon them. It 
is a fact which, as long as human memory endures, will stand 
out in bold relief on the darkest pages of history, that, in the 
years 1846 and 1847, in a country not so large as New England, 
by the blight of a single crop, not less than 116,000 of human 
beings actually perished by the awful death of starvation, not to 
add the thousands, I may add safely the hundreds of thousands, 
who were swept away by diseases engendered by unwholesome 
or insufficient food ; and not to recur to the awful sufferings of 
the thousands and thousands who had strength enoush to strus- 

O O ^' 

gle through this trial, and in the midst of this dreadful shipwreck 
were just able to reach the shore. 

With a rapidly increasing population in all parts of the civil- 
ized world, the production of bread is obviously the first object 
to be sought after, alike by the statesman and the peasant. I 
scarcely dare give the calculation of the immense amount 
which would be realized, in any great country, by the single 



CROPS. 



46^ 



saving of a bushel to an acre, in the quantity of seed ordinarily 
sown.* The same result would follow if an additional bushel 
could be produced in the annual average yield of the wheat crop. 
Even this simple result would be an ample compensation for all 
the labors and expenses of all the agricultural societies now ex- 
isting in the world, and the premiums by which, in any country, 
the government have aimed to enlighten and stimulate produc- 
tion. I have not a doubt that, under an improved culture, not 
only may there be such an increase as to defray all additional ex- 
penses but to add an average increase of five bushels to an acre. 
It is impossible to exaggerate the advantages which would result 
from such an improvement. 

In looking back upon what I have written on the culture of 
wheat, it may not be without advantage to revert to some promi- 
nent points. 

The soil in which wheat is grown to most advantage is a deep 
aluminous soil, but not so clayey as to prevent its being thor- 
oughly cultivated. It requires, therefore, a good mixture of 
calcareous or siliceous matter. A soil of excessive lightness or 
looseness is not favorable to wheat, and a hard and impermeable 
soil equally uncongenial. 

The soil cannot be too deeply cultivated for wheat. The 
roots of the wheat plant descend perpendicularly, and spread 
themselves laterally and broadly in search of food. It would be 
a mistake to plough too deeply for wheat at the time of its being 
sown ; and it is always useful to roll or tread the soil after it is 
sown ; but it is desirable that it should find a deep mellow bed 



* The annual amount of seed for wheat sown in France is estimated at 
32,491,978 bushels. 

If we could suppose a third of tliis saved, the 

saving would amount to 10,830,659 bushels per year. 

Suppose an annual increase of the crops of five 

bushels per acre, this would give an increase 

of production of 54,319,795 bushels. 

Add this, under improved cultivation, to the 

amount of seed saved, and the result would 

be 65,150,454 bushels. 

I believe, under an improved agriculture, tliis is quite practicable. What 
economical object could be more worthy of the government of a country, than, 
by every means within its reach, to encourage such production? 



466 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

below ; and this is the case when it succeeds suca plants as 
madder or tobacco, or especially where the soil has been deeply 
and thoroughly trenched. 

Wetness is peculiarly unfriendly to wheat. Surface water, 
that remains long upon the land, or wetness, which stagnates 
and remains long in the soil, is highly prejudicial to wheat. 
This gives the great value to the Deansten system of draining 
and subsoil-ploughing. The water which falls in such case 
soaks immediately into the ground and is carried off. Where 
there is no subsoil-ploughing, and where the soil is of a retentive 
nature, the laying up the soil in narrow, slightly-rounded beds 
or stitches, so that the water may pass off at once by the inter- 
vals, is highly important. 

Wheat land cannot be too clean, or be kept too clean from 
weeds ; and for this reason it should follow a crop which has 
been kept thoroughly weeded. The small kinds of clover may 
be advantageously sown with or upon wheat in the spring. 
This will not impede the growth of the wheat ; it in some 
measure serves to keep down weeds ; it protects the ground, in 
hot climates, from the great power of the sun, after the wheat 
has been cut ; it furnishes some food for stock after the wheat 
has been harvested ; and it enriches the land greatly, when it 
comes to be ploughed in. 

Wheat should be sown in drills four to six inches apart, or 
better dibbled, or sown in hills, which is not an excessive labor, 
where it is done by skilful and experienced hands. In any 
event, whether sown broadcast or in drills, it should be culti- 
vated, and the ground carefully stirred by the harrow or the 
scarifier. 

Early sowing is strongly recommended in warm climates, so 
that the crop may come off before the extreme heats of summer ; 
but it is advised, in cold climates, to sow wheat quite late, that 
it may not make any, or but slight progress, so as to be exposed 
to the severe frosts of winter, but be ready to show itself with 
the earliest spring. The climate of Great Britain is deemed 
peculiarly favorable to wheat, because of its equable temperature 
and its humidity. The plant grows a longer time, and is 
longer in maturing itself The harvest in England and Scotland 
comes olf, ordinarily, a month later than in the United States, 
where the extreme heat of summer often renders the plant 



CROPS. 467 

prematurely ripe. The wetness of the climate in the former, 
however, makes the harvest more precarious. 

Of manures for wheat, it is ordinarily best that they should be 
given with the preceding crop. Green, or coarse manures from 
the stables, applied directly to wheat, are universally deemed 
objectionable. The effects of lime on the soil may be con- 
sidered as threefold; first, in dividing a tenacious soil, and 
rendering it friable ; second, in preparing the vegetable matter in 
the soil for the nutrition of the plant ; and, in the third place, 
some portion of it may be taken up with advantage by the plant 
itself. The principle of potassium in the soil, in the form of 
common wood ashes or otherwise, seems always highly benefi- 
cial, and almost indispensable. Liquid manure, urine diluted 
with water, is sometimes applied to the growing crop with great 
advantage. I have known also the water in which flax has been 
rotted applied with remarkable success. 

The harvesting of wheat should take place rather early than 
late ; that is, while there is a degree of greenness about it, 
rather than to wait until it becomes perfectly dry, as in such 
case much will be lost in shelling out. In the former case, it 
becomes ripe in the shock ; and it seems well established that, 
when cut early, it makes better bread, and more is obtained from 
the same quantity of flour. 

These are the great axioms which I have gathered in respect 
to the cultivation of wheat on the European continent. The 
importance of the subject will be a sufficient apology for my 
pursuing it at this length, though I may have added little to the 
knowledge which exists in my own country ; and though, in 
many parts of the United States, as I well know, the practice 
may be already highly improved. When all its various uses are 
considered, the ease of its cultivation, the great amount, under 
good and liberal culture, of its production, and the few accidents 
or maladies to which, the crop is liable, and more than this, the 
amount which it returns in manure to the land, I know no plant 
or crop so valuable as that of Indian corn, (maize,) in countries 
where the climate admits of its ripening ; but wheat has the 
universal preeminence in public estimation ; its use in civilized 
countries is daily becoming more general, and is taking the place 
of all coarser grains ; and, in a commercial view, as well as an 
article of subsistence and luxury, it will continue to occupy the 
highest place among the cereal grains. 



468 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

2. Spelt. — There is cultivated in parts of France, and in 
Flanders, an inferior kind of wheat, called spelt, (in French, 
epeautre,*) which mainly differs from other wheat in that it 
retains the husk on the grain, until separated by a machine. It 
is in many places used for bread ; and in nutritive matter, as far 
as chemical examination goes, it bears a proportion to wheat of 
thirty-nine to fifty. It is said to exhaust the soil much less than 
wheat, but this point is controverted by high authority. It will 
yield well on a poor soil, and for this it is often chosen ; but it 
will afford, also, an ample compensation for good treatment. 
The straw is stiffer than that of wheat, and, though harder, is 
preferred by cattle. It will bear to be cropped once or twice 
in its early growth for green forage, and is deemed excellent 
for this purpose. It endures the drought like rye, and will grow 
well upon lands which are ioo light and dry for wheat. The 
difference between the weight of the grain of spelt with its 
husk on, compared with wheat, is as forty-two to seventy-six ; 
and the ordinary difference in price is as seventy-two to one 
hundred, allowing for the extra expense in hulling and grinding. 
Under very good cultivation it is stated to yield about thirty 
bushels to the acre, with the hull, or in the husk. 

Of this grain there are two kinds ordinarily cultivated, the red 
and the white. Some of each kind are bearded, and some with- 
out beard ; and there is a spring and an autumn variety, 
although, by careful selection of the earliest ripe, the autumnal 
is without difficulty converted into the spring variety. It is 
said, likewise, that under a negligent culture, the beardless will 
become bearded, and that under a good culture and a rich soil, 
the bearded will lose its awns. The red variety is preferred, as 
more hardy, and suffering less from wet or cold, as giving a 
stronger and more abundant straw, being less subject to disease, 
and producing a better flour. 

The quantity of seed required to an acre is double of that for 
wheat, because it is sown in the husk. A crop of hemp is 
sometimes taken from the land ; if this is got off" early, turnips 
are then sown, and after the turnips, spelt. If the crop of pota- 
toes are kept clean, spelt is sometimes sown after them ; in 
which case the land is not ploughed, but simply dragged or 



Tritkum spelta. 



CROPS. 469 

scarified, and the spelt merely harrowed in. If it is deemed 
necessary to manure the land in such case, the manure is spread 
on the potato ground, the seed then sown, and both thoroughly 
harrowed in. 

With the husks adhering to the grain, spelt is said to furnish 
a substantial and excellent provender for horses. The straw 
being very strong, it is much sought after for the manufacture 
of hats. It is not a salable grain in the markets, because wheat 
is generally preferred, and because the millers object to the 
grinding of it. 

I have heard of a crop of ninety-four bushels to the acre, but 
I lack faith in results so extraordinary. In comparing this with 
wheat, it is to be remembered that this was measured in the husk. 

The proportions of spelt in the straw, without taking any 
account of the stubble, are given as follows : — 

Grain-clean, 46-38 

Husks, 1505 

Straw, 36-43 

Loss, 2-14 

100-00 

And 100 parts of the grain in the husk giv^e as follows : — 

Grain-clean, 72-96 

Husks, 23-67 

Loss, 3-37 

These results can be considered only as approximations to 
exactness, as they must be affected by a variety of circumstances. 

There is a smaller and inferior kind of spelt,* which is only 
cultivated where it is thought too poor even for rye or oats, but 
which yields very little. The flour of this grain is excellent for 
some domestic purposes, and it is thought to pay the little care 
and labor which it receives. 

3. Rye. — Rye is very extensively cultivated in Europe — in 
Great Britain to a small extent ; on the Continent, and especially 
in the northern portions, it forms a principal part of the bread of 

* Triticum monococum. 
VOL. II. 40 



470 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the people. In Germany, in Belgium, in the cold and moun- 
tainous districts of France, and in Russia, it is their main depend- 
ence. To the Flemish it has been a great source of wealth 
through their distilleries, not only in the liquor extracted from 
it, but in the number of swine and cattle supported and fatted in 
these distilleries, and the abundance of manure in this way pro- 
duced. There is a debtor side to this amount in the Pandora's 
box of evils, which such a product always opens upon the com- 
munity, in the crimes, and misery, and degradation, of which it 
is the fruitful source ; but I shall leave this, as somewhat foreign 
from my subject, to the sober calculation of my readers.* 

The bread from rye is not deemed so nutritious as that from 
wheat, but it is healthy and good ; and a distinguished German 
maintains that it has a sovereign efficacy for persons whose 
nervous organization is exhausted or deranged by sedentary pur- 
suits or intense application to study. 

Rye succeeds even on a light and dry soil. A clayey, or wet, 
or calcareous soil is not congenial to it. It grows well even upon 
a sandy soil, where scarcely any other grain will succeed. There 
is no grain cultivated which yields so large an amount of straw ; 
and this renders it valuable for litter and for the means of further 
enriching the soil. The straw is valuable for many other pur- 
poses ; and particularly for thatching both houses and stacks of 
grain. In France, vast amounts are used in protecting their 
wine, when it is transported from one place to another, from the 
sun, and in covering other merchandise on its way to market. It 
is said that four crops of rye do not exhaust the soil so much as 
three of wheat ,• and, indeed, it has come within my own experi- 



* The distilleries in Holland, under the imposts of the government, and the 
heavy duties upon the introduction of their produce into France, have been 
almost entirely destroyed. 

Each of these distilleries in the course of a year fatted one hundred and eighty 
head of cattle. The amount of grain consumed at each of them was estimated 
at 276,765 bushels. These establishments, besides the powerful stimulus which 
they gave to cultivation, in the market which they afforded for the grain pro- 
duced, furnished likewise the most abundant supplies of tlie richest manure. 

There was this advantage also arising from them, that in case of scarcity or 
famine, the immense supplies of grain which they always had on hand, were 
diverted from the manufacture of gin to the supply of bread for the people. Thia 
was giving the loaf instead of tlic scorpion. 



CROPS. 471 

ence in the United States, that where rye has been cultivated 
for a considerable term of years successively on the same land, 
and early clover has been sown upon it in the spring and ploughed 
in with the stubble in the autumn at the time of sowing for the 
next crop, the land, without any other application, has been in a 
course of gradual improvement, and the yield of rye continually 
increased. This is a common practice among the best Flemish 
farmers, and highly a])proved. 

Of the rye cultivated, there is the winter and the spring rye, 
which differ from each other only in the time of sowing, except- 
ing that the rye sowed in the autumn is more productive than 
that sowed in the spring, having a longer time to grow in. The 
rye, which I have described in another place as the St. John's- 
day rye, and which has been recently introduced into England, 
is known in France as the multicaulis or many-stalked rye. It 
is sown in June, and will bear cutting two or three times for 
green forage, and yet yield a good crop. It has the property of 
tillering or spreading from the root very abundantly, though it is 
maintained by some farmers that other kinds of rye, managed in 
the same M^ay, would show the same properties ; and the multi- 
caulis rye sown late in the autumn loses this property. The 
grain of the multicaulis rye is not so salable in the market as 
other rye, from its small size. 

The general cultivation of rye is so well understood, that I 
need not enlarge upon it. The best farmers advise not to apply 
fresh barn-manure to the crop, but prefer that which is decom- 
posed, or that it should follow a crop which has been well 
manured and cleaned. It does not succeed well on lands subject 
to fogs, and, therefore, they cultivate little of it directly in the 
neighborhood of the Rhine. The straw is abundant, but the 
grain does not fill well. 

The principal disease to which rye is subject is the ergot, in 
which the kernels of the grain become swollen, and form a black, 
horny substance, well known among medical men as a ])owerful 
agent. This prev^ails much more in some years than in others ; 
and when care is not taken to separate it from the grain before 
it is ground, which can be done by careful winnowing or sifting, 
it is productive of fatal disease, driving often to insanity, and 
producing mortification in the limbs. The spotted fever, a 
species of plague which prevailed in parts of New England with 



473 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

such a melancholy fatality in 1812, was attributed to the use of 
this diseased grain. In 1816 it was fatal in some parts of Ger- 
many ; and it is said that in one case, where the soldiers in gar- 
rison were fed upon bread made from this diseased grain, a tenth 
part of them died. 

The subject of harrowing rye in the spring, so urgently recom- 
mended in the cultivation of wheat, is a point contested by intel- 
ligent farmers, some strongly recommending, others as strongly 
opposing, the practice. If the rye is far advanced, it certainly 
cannot be advisable ; but the authority by which the practice is 
enforced is so high and practical, that I should be strongly dis- 
posed to try it, where the condition of the rye admitted of it. 
The spring rye yields a crop inferior, both in quantity and qual- 
ity, to that which is sown in the autumn. I have spoken of the 
multicaulis rye as a valuable forage when sown in June, and cut 
green. Its earliness in the spring would give it a value in the 
United States, but later in the season we have a substitute in 
Indian corn altogether superior. 

The ordinary weight of a bushel of rye is from fifty-five to 
fifty-seven pounds, and the proportion of grain to the straw and 
chaff is as one hundred to two hundred and ninety-two. These 
proportions, however, must be obviously affected by the size of 
the plant, and the height at which it is cut. The culture of rye 
has seldom had half justice done to it. The color of the prod- 
uct is, I believe, mainly dependent upon the nature of the soil 
in which it is grown. There is a prejudice against the black 
bread made in many parts of the country; but the white rye 
produces a bread scarcely differing in appearance from wheat, 
and of great sweetness. For feediug animals it is of much 
value ; when cooked, one pound of rye is rated as equal to three 
pounds of hay ; and I have a friend in France, who would be 
esteemed as one of the best farmers in any country, who keeps a 
large number of horses, and feeds his horses upon rye-bread, 
whenever the relative prices of hay and rye render it eligible. 

4. Barley. — Barley is not largely cultivated in France, as 
wine forms the principal drink of the country. The use of 
beer, however, is said to be extending, and consequently the cul- 
tivation of barley. 

There are said to be three kinds of barley, in reference to the 



CROPS. 473 

season of sowing ; winter barley sown in autumn, spring barley, 
which is advised to be sown as early as possible on the opening 
of the spring, and a kind which is sown still later, under the 
name of summer barley. There is also another division into 
six-rowed barley and two-rowed barley, and these two kinds 
have their sub-varieties. There is a kind called the celestial 
barley, to which the husk is strongly attached; but which, when 
threshed, becomes what is called a naked barley, the husk falling 
off, and the grain itself being semi-transparent. It is a good 
bearer, but ripens late ; and in general, the naked barleys, though 
cultivated for soups or for domestic uses, are not much sought 
after in the markets. There is another kind, called the coffee- 
barley, which is also a naked barley, the grain of which is 
stated to be as heavy as that of wheat, but the straw is not 
strong, and it is liable to be lodged. It is threshed with diffi- 
culty, and it is very subject to smut. 

The kinds usually cultivated are the common six-rowed and 
the common two-rowed barley. This latter grain is extremely 
hardy, and was found cultivated in Lapland, as high as 67° 20' 
north. The winter barley is said to produce a much heavier 
crop than the spring-sown ; and where the spring barley is sown, 
it is advised to get it in as early in March as possible. The 
quantity of seed employed is one third more than that of wheat. 
In many rotations it follows wheat ; and in such case it is 
strongly urged to turn under the stubble as soon as the wheat 
crop is removed. The neglect to do this for any length of time 
will be greatly to the disadvantage of the succeeding barley 
crop. 

The soil for barley cannot be too rich or too well cultivated ; 
and it should be kept as clean from weeds as possible. No plant 
is more rapid in its vegetation ; and, therefore, if manure is 
applied to it, it should be in that decomposed state that it may 
be immediately available for the uses of the plant. This, of 
course, applies more to spring than to winter-sown barley, which 
has a longer time to grow in. The soil for barley should not be 
a hard soil, or one apt to be baked by the sun, as the roots of 
the plant have a tendency to spread themselves, and therefore 
demand a loose and friable soil. Barley is often taken after pota- 
toes ; and, in that case, as soon as the potatoes are removed, the 
land is turned over with the plough, and in the spring it is again 
40* 



474 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

lightly ploughed, the barley sown, and covered with a harrow. 
Clover is sometimes sown at the same time, and a light roller 
passed over it. For barley sown in the autumn, it is not objec- 
tionable that the land should be moist ; but when sown in the 
spring, the land cannot be too warm and dry. If the land is 
clayey and cold, the barley is not sown so early as in other 
cases. 

The Flemish cultivation of this crop is extremely careful and 
liberal ; and nowhere are better crops to be found. The polders 
in Flanders are those lands which, by embankments, have been 
redeemed from the sea, or from the floods of the rivers, and then 
drained by cross ditches. These lands, being the alluvial de- 
posits of uncounted years or centuries, are extremely rich ; and 
large crops of winter barley are grown upon them. Crops as 
good, however, according to the testimony of a distinguished 
farmer, are grown upon lighter lands, where they are carefully 
cultivated, and liberally manured. The brewers prefer the 
barley grown upon the light lands to that grown upon the 
heavier soils; they find the skin of the grain finer, and the grain 
itself better filled. They prefer, likewise, the winter to the 
spring barley, because it weighs heavier. It gives, likewise, a 
larger product. 

In the neighborhood of Ghent, where one witnesses the per- 
fection of agriculture, the mode of cultivating this crop is tfius 
in the main detailed by an experienced agriculturist, to whom 
I have already referred.* 

They plough the land twice ; they then lay it in beds of 
about five feet in width ; they then go upon the land with a cart 
of liquid manure, the horse walking in the furrows, and a good 
deal of the liquid of course falling in the furrows, between the 
beds ; they then level the land with a harrow ; they then spread 
upon the field ten or twelve two-horse loads of rotted manure to 
the acre, and sow the seed upon the manure ; the next step is to 
clean out the furrows between the beds with a spade, spreading 
the soil taken out upon the seed, and at the same time covering 
the manure. The whole field is then trodden by foot, or by a 
roller drawn by men. The object of this is to retain the hu- 



* Van Aelbroeck's Agriculture of Flanders. 



CROPS. 475 

midity in the soil, so that the seed may come up the better. 
When the seed is two or three inches high, it is then manured 
again, with a copious dressing of liquid manure, so that the field 
is in a condition to bear a crop of potatoes or of turnips the 
same year. Where the liquid manure is from the privies of the 
town, it is necessary to dilute it with water. The roots of 
barley spreading upon the surface, rather than descending 
deeply, it is not necessary to bury that or the manure deeply, 
although where barley is sown in the autumn, it is generally 
advised to plough it in with a light furrow. The crops in such 
cases are very large, averaging more than sixty bushels to the 
acre. The general cultivation in Flanders is most remarkable 
for its carefulness, its most abundant labor, and its liberal manur- 
ing. I do not know where I should go to find that which is 
superior to it ; and, indeed, it would be difficult to produce its 
equal. The farmers of the United States would be startled at 
the amount of manual labor bestowed upon their lands by the 
Flemish. A redundant population gives them the means of 
doing this with, great advantage. 

It is well established that barley may succeed wheat, but 
wheat does not well follow barley. Turnips are often taken 
after barley, and a crop of rye after the turnips. Beans, likewise, 
follow with advantage a crop of barley. 

5. Oats. — Oats can hardly be said to be largely cultivated 
in France. They are grown exclnsively for the use of horses. 
This, however, is more in the north than in the south. The 
stimulating and exciting character of oats, as feed for horses, 
renders them much more useful in a cold than in a warm climate. 
Oats are supposed generally to be adapted to almost all soils and 
climates ; but, like other products, they repay a careful and lib- 
eral cultivation. It is pretended, by some persons, that a crop of 
oats ameliorates rather than exhausts the soil. This may be the 
case where oats are grown upon a turfy soil newly turned up ; 
that is to say, it may be the best crop by which to reduce such 
a soil into a condition for cultivation ; but that it otherwise 
enriches a soil can hardly be believed. It is the opinion, how- 
ever, of many farmers, that sooner than any other crop, it avails 
itself of the nutritive parts of the soil, and reduces and extracts 
manure from ligneous matter contained in the soil, and that it 



476 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

will, better than any other crop, bear the application of coarse 
manure. I give these opinions, as I receive them, from good 
authority. 

There are several varieties cultivated, divided by the French 
into white and black ; by the Flemish, into white, yellow, and 
black. The white oat is most congenial to a soil which is 
humid, the black to a dry soil. The black oat, in comparison 
with the white, is represented as worth an eighth more for use; 
that is, it is more nutritive in the same weight, and its cultiva- 
tion less exhausting to the soil. 

The Hungarian oat, called sometimes the Tartarian oat, with 
all its panicles pendent on one side, is here found under two 
varieties, the white and the black. This species weighs heavier 
than the white, but not so heavy as the common black oat. It 
gives more grain and more straw than the common white oat, 
but it requires rich and strong land. 

The potato oat is very little cultivated in France. Indeed, it 
can only succeed under a far better cultivation than is here 
bestowed upon the crop. The Siberian oat is of early maturity ; 
the grains are yellow and very heavy, but the straw hard and 
coarse. The growth of this kind is so rapid, that it is said to 
have been cut when young for a green crop, and afterwards 
yielded a good grain crop. 

There are two kinds of oats cultivated in France, known as 
winter and spring oats; the former kind being sown in the 
autumn ; but this kind is only safe in parts of the country where 
the winters are mild, as oats are liable to be destroyed by severe 
frosts. 

The best crops in France, rating thirty-three pounds to a 
bushel, give about forty-eight bushels to the acre, but a great 
portion of the crops gives much less ; and the average crop is 
rated at about sixteen bushels per acre, which indicates very 
negligent cultivation; an eminent French cultivator calls it 
detestable, but it would not be civil in a stranger to use so harsh 
a term. 

The value of oats, compared with hay, in nutritive matter, is 
rated at one hundred to one hundred seventy-five. It is strongly 
advised by the French farmers to use the oats without threshing, 
cutting up the grain and the straw together; and by all means, 
to harvest the oats at so early a season that they may not shell 



CROPS. 477 

out upon the ground ; as much is always lost iu this way, when 
they are suffered to become perfectly ripe before cutting. The 
quantity sown to an acre is four bushels. 

The Flemish farmers obtain very large crops of oats where 
their land is cultivated with a spade, or otherwise deeply culti- 
vated. With them, the white oat weighs iieavier by the bushel, 
but the yellow oat gives the largest crop, especially on their 
meadows. They cultivate their oats upon stitches, of a width 
greater or less according as the soil is wet or dry. They say 
that oats require not so much manure as barley by one third ; 
but they prefer manure that is well rotted, that the plant may be 
forced as rapidly as possible. AVhen the plant is a fortnight old, 
they apply a dressing of liquid manure. Such cultivation is 
evidently expensive and laborious ; but, as in almost all other 
cases, extra carefulness is compensated by extra product. Some- 
times the liquid manuring is repeated, and even more than once. 
In planting, they are careful not to bury their seed too deeply, 
two inches being deemed ample. 

The great evil to which the crop of oats is subject, is the smut; 
but for this as yet no preventive has been discovered. The 
sowing of smutty seed is sure to produce it. 

6. Meslin, or Metkil. — The French have a custom of cul- 
tivating what they call meteil, but what is called in English 
meslin ; that is, a mixture of wheat and rye. The proportions 
are not very exactly determined. If the land is more favorable 
to wheat than rye, more of wheat is sown in the mixture than 
of rye, and the contrary. It yields a good crop when sown after 
wheat, when wheat following wheat would not be advisable. 
This culture is far from being universally approved in France ; 
but some eminent farmers maintain that the crop is more sure 
than any other ; that it is not easily lodged, and that neither the 
rye nor the wheat is so liable to rust or mildew as when culti- 
vated alone. It sometimes happens, likewise, that the season is 
not favorable to one of the kinds of grain, when the other yields 
a crop. It follows potatoes to advantage. It is generally con- 
sumed on the farm, in preference to being sent to market ; and 
it makes a wholesome bread. 

7. Maize, or Indian Corn. — Indian corn, {Zea mays.) here 
often called Turkey wheat, for what reason I do not know, is 



478 EUROPEAN AGRICULTUIIE- 

cultivated to a considerable extent in the south, south-west, and 
south-east of France, and very much in various parts of Italy. 
In the richest soils in Italy it presented an extraordinary luxuri- 
ance, but nothing could be more slovenly than the cultivation of 
it, wlierever I saw it. 

The largest crops, of which I could obtain information, were 
eighty bushels to an acre ; but the ordinary yield was very much 
less than that, and indeed was quite small. The kinds culti- 
vated were of the small yellow flint variety. The large kinds 
of gourd-seed corn grown in the Southern States of the United 
States, or the kinds grown in the Western States, an intermediate 
kind between the flint and the gourd-seed, would find the climate 
and soil of Southern Europe favorable, and might be introduced 
there to great advantage, if, in the present condition of society, 
the people were capable of any great improvement. They are 
little accustomed to use it for bread, having no knowledge of the 
modes of mixing it with rye or wheat ; but they use it as a kind 
of mush or pudding, called po/ewto. The expense of making it 
into food among the peasants is strongly objected to, as consum- 
ing both fuel and time. It is said that Napoleon used to lament 
that a laboring man, whether mechanic or peasant, should be 
accustomed to have a fire in his house for cooking ; and the 
writer who records this fact, sympathizes strongly in this senti- 
ment. That is to say, he would have all their food taken cold, 
and no time nor money expended in cooking. 

I wonder if it never occurred to these men, what an improve- 
ment it would have been, if these laboring people, so troublesome 
and expensive as they are to be fed, and yet so useful and neces- 
sary as they are in growing all this bread, conld have been turned 
out at night like the cattle after their yoke is taken off', to graze 
in the pasture. This would save bed and bedding, and house- 
rent, as well as food and cooking. 

Such sentiments must sound rather harshly upon the ears of 
American farmers and laborers, who are accustomed, even in the 
humblest conditions, to sit down daily to a nicely-spread table, 
covered with a variety and abundance of bread, meat, and vege- 
tables, to which are often added tea, coffee, and beer. The diet 
of the laboring poor in Europe is chiefly bread ; and this is 
almost always furnished by a professional baker. During my 
residence in Europe, I do not recollect a single instance where 
bread was made in the family. The want of fuel on the Conti- 



CROPS. 479 

nent is a serious necessity. There are no laboring people who 
live in half the abundance of the laboring people of the United 
States. 

I should extend my remarks much too far if I treated of many 
of the other smaller crops of the Continent, which indeed present 
nothing remarkable ; and in treating of Flemish husbandry, I 
shall have occasion to speak of several valuable plants which are 
cultivated in common by the two countries. 

8. Buckwheat. — Buckwheat is grown very largely in poor 
soils in some parts of France, but it seems to be a mere shift to 
live ; and leaves only the regret, that land capable of a much 
better cultivation should be thus appropriated, 

9. Millet. — Millet is cultivated to some extent in parts of 
France, but almost exclusively for forage, and, in this respect, 
deserves much more attention than it usually receives. I wish 
my countrymen were more impressed with the extraordinary 
value of this plant. I know few plants which make a more 
abundant return, or which, when it is well cured, give a more 
nutritious forage, or one more relished by stock. On the inter- 
vale lands of the River Loire, where the crops are occasionally 
destroyed by an inundation, a crop of millet is obtained after the 
floods have passed off. The crop, under such circumstances, 
cannot be expected to be large, but it is obtained where no other 
would be. 

10. Clover. — The common large red clover, known in 
France as the Spanish clover, is cultivated to a considerable 
extent in parts of France. It has been a long time cultivated in 
the Netherlands or Low Countries, but was not an established 
culture in France imtil about three quarters of a century ago. 
It is now considered as the foundation of good husbandry. Its 
foliage is abundant, and its large roots essentially enrich the land. 
It is sown in the spring, and its seed must not be buried deeply. 
The mode strongly recommended is to sow it on the wheat in 
the spring, immediately after the wheat is harrowed ; and then 
to roll the wheat with a light roller. 

It comes in, in a regular course of rotation, but it is not 
allowed to occupy the land more than one or two years ; and it 



480 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

is advised not to repeat it again under three years. Some 
English farmers object to its recurring even so often as this. 
The effect of plaster of Paris or gypsum sown upon it, either 
when the dew is upon it or the air is humid, is as remarkable as 
in the United States, though beyond a certain amount it is of no 
avail. The efficiency or mode of operation of this extraordinary 
agent seems, as yet, wholly unexplained. The French farmers 
understand perfectly well the advantages of ploughing-in a 
clover stubble as a preparation for grain of almost any kind ; for 
lands which are not very rich, it is considered only as an aid, 
and not as a principal manure. 

The small white clover, otherwise called the Dutch clover, 
constitutes an important element in the rich meadows and pas- 
tures of Holland. Clover is cultivated for its seed, in which case, 
the first crop is taken for forage, and the second for the seed. 
An eminent farmer speaks of his neighbors having refused to buy 
his clover-seed because his crop was small and thin ; but, accord- 
ing to his own experiments with this seed, it was preferable to 
seed from a crop of more luxuriant growth. The probability is, 
that it was more mature. 

Another species of clover, cultivated to a considerable extent, 
is the trifolium incarnatwn, or scarlet clover, of which I have 
spoken in another place. This appears with a deep red flower, 
of a conical form and of extraordinary beauty. It endures for 
one year only. 




^ 
1 

^ 



\^' 






^X 






l('^(Hy'!^\\ 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



TENTH REPORT. 



CXXVI. — CROPS. ( Continued.) 

11. LucERN. — Lucern is cultivated very extensively in France, 
and, indeed, may be considered as their great dependence for 
green fodder. It is a general opinion that no plant will, in this 
respect, yield a greater return. Indian corn will yield more 
green food, but a crop of lucern may be got much earlier. Three 
things are important in the culture of it ; first, that the soil on 
which it is sown should be rich ; second, that it should be deep, 
good in the subsoil as in the surface soil ; and third, that it 
should be kept clean from weeds. On my visit to an admirably 
managed farm, about twenty miles from Paris, where every thing 
indicated the most exact care and attention, and which might 
almost be cited as a model farm, the farmer informed me that his 
lucern, which he cultivated largely, was usually cut three times, 
and gave him at the rate of fourteen tons to an hectare, made 
into hay. A French hectare is about two and a half acres, and 
this would be, therefore, a yield of more than five and a half 
tons to an acre. A dry season is particularly unfavorable to it. 
It requires a rich, but suffers from a wet soil. 

Lucern is sometimes sown among wheat or barley ; but the 
most certain mode of securing it against weeds, is to plant it in 
narrow drills, and keep it clean by the hoe for a time, until it 
becomes well established. About eight pounds of seed — though 
this is deemed a large allowance — are sown to an acre. It will 

VOL, II, 41 



482 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

bear cutting three times a year, and will endure in the ground 
eight to ten years. It does not come to perfection the first year : 
and the circumstance of its being ordinarily continued in the 
ground for a term of years forms an objection to its culture, with 
those who wish to pursue a regular rotation of crops. Gypsum 
is applied to lucern with the same success as to clover ; and the 
best farmers advise to harrow it in the spring, and, indeed, after 
each cutting, excepting the last cutting in the autumn. 

12. Sainfoin. — Sainfoin is the next species of forage most 
largely cultivated in France. I have already spoken of it, but 
its value can scarcely be too highly appreciated. It is ordinarily 
cut only once a year, but in rare cases, twice. It forms a most 
excellent feed, especially for sheep ; and the hay is of the best 
quality. It will endure for some years. They have had no 
success in cultivating sainfoin or lucern in Flanders. The preju- 
dice, to which I have referred, that it requires a calcareous soil, 
is, undoubtedly, not without some foundation. 

I come now to speak of the great crops, which may be said to 
be almost peculiar to France ; and if it be proper to estimate the 
agriculture of a country by the success of its peculiar crops, then 
the agriculture of France assumes a high rank, I refer in this 
case particularly to beet sugar, wine, silk, and oil and fruit from 
olives. These are in France immense products, and of high 
commercial value. 

13. Beets. Beets for Sugar. — The history of the intro- 
duction of the culture of beets into France for the manufacture 
of sugar, is well known. The presence of sugar in the beet-root, 
in an available quantity, was the discovery of a distinguished 
chemist ; and it is among the great obligations under which that 
science, cultivated so successfully, and with such distinguished 
talent, has laid the French. The Emperor J>fapoleon, being cut 
off by the nations at war with him from those supplies of this 
article, which the people had been accustomed to receive from 
their colonies, conceived the plan of their supplying this great 
necessity from within themselves. It was much ridiculed, but 
he was not a man to be turned aside from any great project by 
any minor considerations, where success was possible ; his object, 
to a considerable degree, was accomplished. Since his time, the 



CROPS. 483 

culture and manufacture have been immensely extended, and it 
bids fair to prove one of the greatest boons that was ever bestowed 
on agriculture. 

There are several kinds of beets cultivated, some of which 
have been cultivated for a long time. The common red or blood 
beet, ordinarily grown in gardens for the table, is a well-known 
vegetable, not, I think, however, so highly appreciated in the 
United States as in England and on the Continent, where it is 
much eaten. I have known this cultivated with great success 
for cattle, adding largely to the product of cows in milk. This 
species, however, is never used for sugar. 

The next is a very large kind, growing almost entirely out of 
the ground, of a pink color and white flesh, known commonly as 
the scarcity beet, or mangel-wurzel, attaining often a large size, 
and vahiable for cattle. There are one or two other kinds, of a 
yellowish flesh, growing largely out of the ground, and which 
are considered even more nutritious for stock than the mangel- 
wurzel. 

The beet employed for sugar is called the Silesian beet, with 
a whitish skin and white flesh ; but the most valuable kinds have 
a green neck and yellowish tint on the top. This is full as val- 
uable for the feeding of animals as any of the others, and is 
decidedly the beet selected for its sugar properties. I have before 
me the chemical analysis of the properties of the beet-root, but I 
am unable to derive from them a single practical inference. It 
may be hoped that chemistry will presently tell us what partic- 
ular soil is best fitted to its growth, and what manure it pecu- 
liarly demands ; but this service it has not yet performed. It 
grows best in a deep, rich, aluminous soil, not a sandy soil, not a 
calcareous soil, which is unfriendly to it ; and it is particularly 
desirable that the soil should not be liable to suff"er by excessive 
drought, so that vegetation is arrested. It will bear to be well 
manured, but it is not an extraordinary exhauster of the soil. It 
returns indeed a large amount of enriching matter to the soil in 
its abundant leaves. 

The land should be well prepared, by being deeply dug or 
ploughed, and thoroughly manured, and the beets may be either 
sown, or planted in rows, of about twenty-seven inches apart, 
and the plants in the row about fourteen inches asunder. A great 
advantage comes from growing the plants in a nursery bed, and 



484 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

transplanting them. This gives a longer season for the prepa- 
ration of the land, and the increase of labor in transplanting is 
compensated by the increased facility of keeping the cultivation 
clean. The largest crop of which I have obtained any informa- 
tion, was about forty-nine tons to an acre, and this was a case in 
which they had been transplanted. The ordinary crop does not 
exceed, and in many cases it falls short of, twenty-nine tons. 
The amount of seed required for»an acre is not large, and every 
single seed produces four plants. A large proportion of the beet- 
root is water, and it is generally estimated that twenty pounds 
of hay are equal to one hundred pounds of crude beet. In trans- 
planting, it is recommended, instead of doubling it up, to break 
off the lower end of the tap-root, and to plant it with a picker or 
a dibble. 

In the culture of the beet, many persons have been in the 
habit of plucking the lower leaves for their stock, maintaining 
that the growth of the plant was not injured by this abrasion. 
Experiments fully establish the contrary. An experiment made 
in Belgium shows, that where beets, from which the leaves were 
not phicked, produced nine hundred and twenty-five baskets of 
roots, an equal part of the field, having been plucked once, pro- 
duced eight hundred and thirty-nine ; and another portion, which 
had been twice plucked in a season, produced only five hundred 
and thirty-nine. The form in which this experiment is stated is 
not exact, as a basket itself is an uncertain measure, and the 
degree to which the plucking extended is not stated, but it seems 
decisive. The leaves, at the harvesting of the crop, furnish a 
large amount of forage. If left on the ground, they are reputed 
highly beneficial as manure, still more so if consumed by ani- 
mals : and cases are reported in which they have been closely 
packed away, where the air was effectually excluded, and have 
yielded a valuable forage for the winter. 

That, exclusive of their sugar properties, they constitute a 
valuable green fodder for cows in milk, and fatting cattle, strongly 
recommends them to cultivation. They have this great advan- 
tage over turnips, that they give no disagreeable taste to the 
milk ; and that when, in the spring, turnips have become corky, 
and potatoes sprout abundantly, and seem to lose in a great 
degree their nutritious properties, the beet preserves its freshness, 
even into June. 



CROPS. 485 

It is not within my province to go into the subject of the 
manufacture of sugar, farther than as it is connected with agri- 
culture. The greatest profits are realized where an individual 
unites in himself the character of cultivator and manufacturer. 
The pulp that remains, after the sugar is expressed, is employed 
in the fatting of cattle and sheep. An eminent farmer, whose 
cultivation was of the finest description, and who manufactured 
a large amount of sugar, informed me, that he estimated his pulp, 
for the feeding of cattle and sheep, as constituting seven-twen- 
tieths of the whole value of the crop. It was in June, in that 
most beautiful agricultural country, French Flanders, when I 
visited him ; and he was then using, and had large reservoirs of, 
the pulp from the manufacture of the preceding autumn. This 
he kept sweet and good in large vats, covered with sods and earth 
so as completely to exclude the air, and guard against a change 
of temperature. In this case, the beets were not rasped, but cut 
into small and thin slices by a machine, and then exposed to a 
hydrostatic pressure. Nothing could be finer than the samples 
of sugar which he showed me ; and I admired, with great pleasure, 
the high condition of his sheep and cattle fed upon the pulp. He 
informed me that he obtained six per cent, of sugar from his 
beets. The chemists say that the beet contains twelve per cent, 
of saccharine matter, but the amount obtained does not ordinarily 
exceed five per cent. Whether this proceeds from the imper- 
fection of the manufacture, further inquiries may determine. In 
general, the farmers are not manufacturers, but sell their crude 
product to the large manufacturers in their vicinity. In such 
case, they usually make arrangements to receive back a portion 
of the expressed pulp. If otherwise, it would clearly be an ex- 
hausting process. It is mentioned, that the pulp constitutes a 
third of the weight of the crop. One hundred pounds of raw 
sugar give seventy-five pounds of refined sugar, though it is 
stated that, by a recent discovered process, the sugar is bleached 
without being refined. 

The gentleman to whom I have referred above, states that the 
manufacture of beet-sugar is at present a highly lucrative opera- 
tion. At first, when the ports were closed to foreign sugars, 
prices were such, that, even with imperfect modes of manufac- 
ture, the business yielded a large profit. Afterwards, when the 
sugar of the French West India colonies came into competition 
41* 



486 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

with it in the open market, the colonists found the competition 
too severe, and thinking themselves on the verge of ruin, they 
cried to the government for help and protection. The colonies 
of France were regarded as so important to its commerce and its 
navy, that the government laid a heavy impost upon domestic 
sugar. I believe governments never intermeddle directly in the 
control of human industry without doing somebody a harm ; and 
excepting where allowed in some qualified cases as the rewards 
of inventive genius or skill, or as a security to the beneficial 
uses of capital, which otherwise could not be brought into use, 
monopolies of every kind combine all the elements of injustice. 
The effect of this impost was at once to ruin a large portion of 
the manufacturers of domestic sugar, and arrest the progress of a 
cultivation destined to exert the most beneficial influence upon 
the general interests of agriculture. The fixtures and establish- 
ments in different parts of the country fell into other hands, at a 
ruinous sacrifice to their original proprietors. The West India 
proprietors became more clamorous, for avarice was never yet 
satisfied with any concession, and the impost was still more 
increased. The elasticity of skill and genius have defied the 
pressure. Improved modes of manufacture have been discovered, 
by which more sugar is obtained from the same amount of the 
raw material, and obtained at a cheaper rate ; and in spite of the 
heavy imposts, the manufacture is highly profitable, especially to 
those persons who bought already made to their hands the old 
manufacturing establishments. 

In 1842, the production of beet sugar in France reached the 
enormous amount of 67,717,685 lbs. It had in some years, as 
it must evidently vary with the seasons, been even more than 
this ; and there is no reason to suppose that it has decreased. 
In some parts of the country I have seen several factories of 
recent erection. When the value of the leaves and the pulp for 
the fatting of animals is added to this actual creation of weahh 
out of the earth ; when the wages received by tiie innumerable 
persons employed in the culture of the plant, and the fabrication 
and refinement of the sugar, are also taken into view ; when the 
admirable preparation which this culture makes for the succeed- 
ing crops ; when its beneficial influences upon the commerce ol 
the country are considered ; and when, especially, the whole is 
regarded as the product of healthy, well-requited, and free 



CROPS. 



487 



labor, and without even the smallest expense or hazard to human 
life or comfort, — it is impossible to exaggerate the value of this 
great and increasing product. 

A highly-distinguished agriculturist in France, perliaps as 
competent as any man to speak on this subject, has recently 
given to the pubHc a statement in regard to it, wliich must 
attract particular attention. I shall give his statement nearly in 
his own words. An hectare (about two and a half acres) pro- 
duces in the Isle of Bourbon about 76,000 kilograms (a kilo- 
gram is about two pounds and a fifth of a pound) of cane, 
which will give 2200 kilograms of sugar, and which costs in 
labor 2500 francs. An hectare of beet-root produces 40.000 
kilograms of roots, which will produce 2400 kilograms of sugar, 
and the expense of the culture of which costs 354 francs. The 
cost of the cane-sugar in this case is twenty-seven centimes, and 
of the beet-sugar fourteen centimes only, per kilogram.* These 
are extraordinary statements, and v/ill be looked at by the 
political economist and the philanthropist with great interest. 
There are few of the northern states of Europe, or of the United 
States, which might not produce their own sugar; and when we 
take into account the value of this product, even in its remains 
after the sugar is extracted, for the fatting of cattle and sheep, 
and of course for the enrichment of the land for succeeding 
crops, its important bearing upon agricultural improvement can- 
not be exaggerated. 

The production of beet-sugar is not by any means confined 
to France. Large amounts are produced in Belgium, where I 
found most extensive manufactories, and in several parts of 
Germany ; but in none of these countries is industry in any 
form unrestricted; and a man hardly dares to be successful in 
any enterprise, at least to proclaim his success, lest the govern- 
ment, by some impost or taxation, should endeavor to avail itself 



* " According to M. Peligot, the average amount of sugar in bocts is tv.-eive 
per cent. ; but by extraction they obtain only about five per cent. The cano 
contains about eighteen per cent, of saccharine matter, but they get only about 
seven and a lialf. The expense of cultivating an hectare of beets, according to 
Dombasle, is 354 francs. An liectare of cane, which produces 2200 kilograms 
of sugar in the Isle of Bourbon, and only 2000 in French Guiana, demands the 
labor of twelve negroes, the annual expense of each of wliom is 250 francs 
according to M. Labran." — Commission of Inquinj in 1840. 



488 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

of his success for its own advantages. It is thus that every- 
where industry is checked and hampered, and enterprise scarcely 
rises from the ground, but is seen fluttering along upon one 
wing. 

14. Silk. — Silk is another large product in France, giving 
an humble but honest living to thousands and hundreds of thou- 
sands. Its production is greatly on the increase j and the last 
year it nearly doubled itself. 

I know nothing so remarkable, in all its pecuniary and useful 
results, as the product of this humble insect, the silkworm, 
whose whole term of being is limited to five weeks. Nothing is 
to be compared with it in the perfection and beauty of the fabri- 
cations of which it supplies the material and basis. What man, 
woman, or child's dress, in any civilized community, is not in 
some measure indebted to the labors of this humble insect ? 
and its bearing in a commercial view is an immense affair. In 
its pecuniary results, with the exception of the article of bread, 
few things come in competition with it. 

It is not merely the value of the product as it comes from the 
insect which gives it importance, but the extraordinary amount 
of industry and commerce which its humble labors set in 
motion. In France, as in other old and populous countries, 
every branch of industry is divided and minutely subdivided. 
There is in the first place the grower of the mulberry-trees, 
who does not always connect with this pursuit the production 
of silk ; but the leaves of his trees are sold in the market as any 
other forage would be. To him succeeds the grower, or, as he 
is commonly called, the educator of the silk-worms, who hatches, 
feeds, and manages the worms until their task is completed, and 
the cocoons are ready for the market. He is succeeded by the 
filator, or winder, of the silk from the cocoons, who prepares the 
crude or raw silk for the manufacturer. Here anotlier and nu- 
merous class of operatives is set in motion — the si)inner, the 
weaver, the dyer, the pattern-former, the machinist, and the 
master manufacturer, from whose hands it proceeds next into 
the hands of the wholesale dealer, and thence into tbe hands of 
the retail dealer, to say nothing of the various forms which it 
afterwards assumes under the agency of modistes, dress-makers, 
furniture-makers, hat-makers, and the almost countless operations 



CROPS. 489 

and transformations which it has to pass through in the various 
objects of art of which it constitutes a part. Indeed, it would 
be difficult to name any single article which plays a more 
important part in an industrial, economical, and commercial 
view. 

The earliest production of silk is attributed to the Chinese, 
but the particular date of its origin is lost in the obscurity of 
remote history. There are many other worms which, in the 
curious transformations through which they pass, involve them- 
selves, preparatory to their emerging into a new form of being, 
in a cocoon formed of the finest tissue. But it is the silk-worm, 
or, as it is sometimes called, the mulberry-worm, alone which 
furnishes a material of sufficient firmness to be converted into 
cloth. 

The production of silk in France is now carried to a great 
extent. Four years ago it was estimated at 1,200,000 kilo- 
grams, or about 2,640,000 pounds of raw silk per atmum. The 
last year it was reported to have doubled itself, but, if this 
should be an exaggerated statement, the production may yet be 
set down as having vastly increased ; and, in a peaceful condition 
of the country, is likely still more to extend itself. It aifords the 
means of living to many persons, who must otherwise be with- 
out resource. In many ])arts of this culture, the hands of chil- 
dren avail as much as those of men and women, and thus the 
industry of whole families is set in motion. 

The silk-culture has generally been considered as limited to a 
hot climate, and some have maintained that it belonged exclu- 
sively to countries in which the vine could be successfully culti- 
vated. The silk made in temperate climates, and even in the 
mountainous parts of hot countries, where the temperature is 
moderate, is esteemed better than that produced in very hot 
countries. It is difficult to prescribe the exact limits of this 
production. The mulberry will grow in very high latitudes: 
but in such cases, it is liable to be killed by the severe frosts of 
winter, and it is indispensable that the season should be long 
enough, after the first defoliation, for the mulberry-tree to renew 
and perfect its leaves. The worms require a mild and temperate 
climate ; for though they have been grown or reared in rooms 
where the temperature is, properly speaking, artificial, yet the 
expense and trouble attending such arrangements are a serious 



490 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

abatement of the profits, added to the difficulties of managing 
such a temperature, and tlie risks to tlie lives and heahh of the 
worms. It is important to make every effort to keep down the 
expenses of the culture. 

The mulberry may be considered as the only proper food of 
the silk-worm. Various substitutes have been proposed by the 
Chinese and others, but wholly without success. The worms 
may be induced to eat, and may be kept alive upon other sub- 
stances, but tliey will make no silk. Tlie Chinese have moist- 
ened the leaves, and sprinkled them with powdered rice, chicory, 
and peas, and with the powder of the dried mulberry leaves, so 
that the worms, in getting at the leaves, were compelled to eat 
of the powder, but it has been without advantage. 

The mulberry is not a tree of difficult cultivation ; but, like 
most other things, it makes a full compensation for particular 
care and attention. It will grow upon a poor, but it will flourish 
only on a good soil, inclined to sand, and not humid or heavy. 
It is advised to train these trees with an open head, that the 
foliage may be accessible to light and air, and not to feed from 
them until they are full three years old. The leaves must not 
be taken from them more than once in a year, and it is desirable 
to forward the first defoliation, so that the second growth of 
leaves may become quite matured. Mulberry-trees are set out 
as ornamental trees by the sides of roads, and in the neighbor- 
hood of houses ; or, where the business is pursued on an exten- 
sive scale, they are planted in rows at a few yards' distance, as 
is customary with our apple orchards. In many parts of Italy, 
in Lombarcly and Tuscany, the vines are trained to hang in 
graceful festoons from one tree to another; and when the rich 
clusters of grapes are seen among the green foliage, it would be 
difficult to find any thing of the kind more beautiful. An hec- 
tare of arable or meadow land, in France, may be valued at 2000 
to 5000 francs, or say, 400 to 1000 dollars ; an hectare of rnul- 
berry-trees in the same locality would, in such case, be valued at 
5000 to 12,000 francs, or from 1000 to 2400 dollars. It is cal- 
culated that an hectare (about two and a half acres) of mulberry- 
trees, in full bearing, will produce sufficient foliage to supply the 
wants of the worms produced by ten ounces of eggs. This 
would give a product of about 22,000 pounds of leaves. 

The mulberry may be propagated by sowing the seed, by 



CROPS. 491 

engrafting, or by layers; the two latter modes are of coarse the 
only certain modes of securing the best kinds. The principal 
kinds propagated in France are four ; but they differ somewhat 
in their product, as the experiments of one of the first cultivators 
of silk in France, with whom I have the pleasure of an acquaint- 
ance, seem to show. What appears to be wanted in a mulberry 
leaf (excepting for the worms in their first age) is a leaf of a 
good deal of thickness and weight. The four principal mul- 
berry-trees cultivated in France are, — 

Le murier rose, or the rose-leaved mulberry. 

Le murier multicaule, or the multicaulis, well known in the 
United States. 

Le murier Moretti, a mulberry, which takes its name from a 
physician who first produced it. 

Le murier sauvageon, or wild mulberry, which is our common 
white mulberry. 

The multicaulis is condemned in France in the strongest man- 
ner. It is of very easy cultivation ; it yields a great deal of 
foliage ; it produces a fair quantity of silk ; but it is considered 
too watery, and to create disease among the worms. One of the 
most eminent silk culturists in France denoimced it to me in no 
measured terms. The rose mulberry, is upon the whole, pro- 
nounced superior to all others. Its leaves have too much thick- 
ness and strength for the worms in their first age ; but in such 
case it is necessary to select the youngest and most tender loaves, 
and to moisten them with water. The leaves of the common 
wild mulberry are complained of, as fading rapidly after being 
gathered, and becoming too soon unfit for use. The time for 
hatching the worms should correspond as nearly as possible with 
the condition of the leaves, taking care that the leaves should be 
considerably advanced, as Ihc consumption of them in too young 
a state is necessarily wasteful. Experiments have been made to 
test the comparative value of the difierent mulberry leaves in the 
production of silk — I refer to its quality and cpiantity ; but 
though conducted with much care, they do not appear to lead to 
any important practical results. 

The difference in the worms deserves attention, some produ- 
cing a large, and others a smaller, cocoon ; and some giving, con- 
sequently, a larger return in silk than others. This difference is 
considerable, some producing from a certain weight of cocoons 



492 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ten or twelve per cent., and others eighteen per cent, of silk. 
The great division of races is, into those which produce a white, 
and those which produce a yellow, cocoon. It is said that dif- 
ferent races of the worm are suited to dilFerent climates, either 
hot or temperate ; and the results are always more or less affected 
by the mode of feeding and the care bestowed upon them. 

The principal of the white races of worms is called the Sina, 
and this species produces a very fine and beautiful silk. This 
species was imported from China almost a century since ; and its 
excellence has been maintained, and indeed it is represented to 
be much improved by care and selection. The silk of this 
species of worm is employed for making the very finest of the 
white silk fabrics. Ten to twelve pounds of the cocoons produce 
one pound of silk. The cocoons are cylindrical, round at the 
ends, with a depression or cincture round the middle. 

The principal of the yellow races is the Turin. This is 
known in Italy by several different names. The form of the 
cocoon is cylindrical, with a deep indenture or cincture round 
the middle ; the ends are round, and the color is a beautiful 
yellow. They are esteemed as among the best cocoons known, 
and furnish a very strong silk. 

The Cora is another celebrated race, which is reported to have 
been the result of a cross between two of the most beautiful and 
rich of the yellow races, the Turin and the Loudun. This 
species yields a large return of silk in proportion to the weight 
of the cocoons ; the cocoons are much sought after, and sell at a 
higher price than any of the common kinds. As my limits allow 
me only to refer to the best kinds, I shall not enumerate others. 
of which there are several sorts, more or less esteemed in differ- 
ent localities. 

The ordinary life of a silk-worm embraces five ages, or four 
important changes. There is a species called the three-change 
worms ; but this peculiarity is considered as the result of a dis- 
eased constitution, and the product is comparatively worthless. 
The worms, by extraordinary feeding, may be forced to finish 
their feeding in some cases in eighteen days ; but this at the 
expense of a great deal of trouble, and generally at the risk of 
disease. Their feeding is in some cases extended to fifty days ; 
but this is always owing to scanty and illiberal feeding, and the 
product is sure to be inferior. The period most to be desired, in 



CROPS. 493 

which to complete their feeding, is twenty-eight or thirty days. 
This is supposed to depend somewhat upon the peculiar consti- 
tution of the race of worms which are fed, but more upon the 
feeding and management. It is earnestly pressed upon the cul- 
tivators to commence the hatching of the eggs as early in the 
season as the condition of the mulberry leaves will allow it to be 
done with a certainty of a supply of food. The hatching of the 
eggs should be artificially forced, in order, as far as possible, to 
be contemporaneous, as where it is left to take place naturally, 
there will be a difference in the time of hatching among the 
worms of several days, which is an inconvenience to be anxiously 
avoided. It is recommended in the first three ages to cut the 
leaves fine, and for the very young worms in the first stage, they 
should be sifted. In order to success, the worms must not be 
neglected by day or night. In the first age they require twelve 
feedings in the twenty-four hours; in the fourth age, eight or 
ten ; in the fifth age, seven or eight. The feedings should, in 
fact, be multiplied as much as possible ; as where, with a view 
of saving time or labor, the food of three or four times is given 
at once, the worms become disgusted and lose their appetite, a 
great deal of forage is lost, and bad results are likely to follow. 
As overfeeding is injurious, so is fasting equally injurious. In 
order to insure success, no neglect must be tolerated. Cleanliness 
in every department is especially important. The worms nuist 
not be crowded. They must likewise be occasionally assorted, 
placing together those whose progress and condition are most 
nearly alike ; and especially removing at once the feeble and 
diseased. The best preparation for their mounting, when their 
cocoon is to be formed, may be termed a small twig broom, 
inverted and placed so that the upper part maybe spread between 
the shelves on which the worms are fed. The cocoons, after 
they are completed, reserving those only which are designed for 
the continuance of the race, are placed, for the destruction of the 
chrysalis in steam, as being the most certain and eflectual mode. 
The cocoons, being completed, and the poor tenant of this silken 
abode strangled in his own habitation, now pass into other hands 
for the winding of the silk. 

In many parts of Europe, among those who cultivate the 
silk-worm upon a small scale, some vacant room in the house is 
occupied for the worms, and very often some vacant barn or 
VOL. II. 42 



494 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

building is used for this purpose at a season of the year when it 
is not occupied for other purposes. Where silk is cultivated on 
an extensive scale, a building is erected for the special purpose 
of raising the worms, called a magnanerie. The size of this 
building is of course to be proportioned to the quantity of worms 
to be raised ; and the quantity of worms to be raised must be 
proportioned to the amount of food to be obtained. Great 
losses are sometimes incurred by a miscalculation in respect 
either to the forage or the worms. It is of great moment not to 
err on the side of too little provision for the feed of the worms, 
who in their last age consume with almost incredible voracity. 
Few things are more prejudicial to success than a deficiency of 
food, or subjecting the worms to fasting. 

The magnanerie must, in the first place, supply ample room for 
the worms ; they must not be crowded. It requires a separate 
room for the hatching of the worms and their feeding during the 
first age. It must be furnished with sufficient means for heating 
the apartments in which they are kept. It must have the means 
of complete ventilation, without bringing draughts of cold air 
directly upon them. It must be capable of being closed or 
opened at pleasure, in order to regulate the temperature, which is 
of great moment. It must be light also, and be capable of being 
lighted in the evening ; for they like the light, and if success is 
looked for, they are not to be neglected either by day or night. 

It has been supposed that the silk-worms are injuriously 
afiected by noise ; but this is now deemed an error, as no 
organs of hearing have been discovered. They are injuriously 
affected by noxious odors, and this must be guarded against. 
They are likewise much affected by changes of temperature, and 
especially by a close and confined atmosphere. The former may, 
to a certain extent, be regulated by artificial means, and the 
latter by ventilation. The tables on which the worms are 
placed, may be made' of canvass on an endless roller, and the 
worms, being induced by fresh leaves to rise upon a netting 
made of twine set in a frame, may be lifted up, and by turning 
the canvass, the litter may be easily removed, and the worms 
replaced. The legs of the tables on which the worms are fed, 
should be set in water, so as to prevent the access of ants, which 
are destructive to them ; and every pains must be taken to keep 
off birds, rats, and mice, which have no hesitation in destroying 
these industrious creatures. 



CROPS, 495 

There are several serious diseases to which the worms are 
subject, and some of a fatal character. They are supposed in 
general to owe their origin to neglect, to insufficient or irregular 
feeding, to want of ventilation, to neglect of cleanUness, or to 
too much crowding. The disease called the tnuscardine is of all 
others the most dreaded, as it is contagious and generally fatal. 
The causes of it have not yet been ascertained, and no effectual 
remedy has been discovered. If it is not caused by neglect, yet 
the only hope of preventing it is by the most attentive and 
exemplary care. Where it has once prevailed, it is liable to 
reappear ; and in such places it is advised, as the only certain 
preventive, to suspend for a time the raising of the worms. It 
shows itself at all ages of the worms. A large premium has 
been offered by the Agricultural Society of France for the dis- 
covery of an effectual remedy or preventive ; but as yet without 
success. The worms are often injuriously affected by thunder- 
storms or a highly electrical atmosphere ; but no human skill 
affords any protection against this. 

Many experiments have been made to get two crops of worms 
and silk in a season ; but by the most experienced feeders such 
attempts are entirely disapproved. I shall not attempt any cal- 
culation of expenses or profits, these must so vary in different 
places from the difference in the cost of labor and of land. 
First, it may be said of the silk culture, that the principal labor 
which it requires occurs at a season when other agricultural 
operations are not of a pressing character, and the season is one 
of comparative leisure. In the next place, the farm buildings, 
which may be occupied, where the climate admits of it, as a 
magnanerie, are likely to be vacant, preparatory to receiving the 
crops. Next, the trees being once planted and matured, and the 
magnanerie established, they require but little care to preserve 
them in condition, and a large portion of the expense is incurred. 
In the last place, the work is of a character to give healthful, 
useful, and interesting employment to the younger and female 
parts of the family, whose expenses are sure to go on, but whose 
labor, for want of some such occupation, might otherwise be 
lost. The article, when produced, is imperishable, and at present 
may be considered as sure of a market. 

I have only noted the outlines of the subject. I must not go 
more into detail ; but the whole process is simple and intelligi- 



496 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

ble, and the details are easily attainable. There is no extraordi- 
nary ingenuity in the apparatus or machines connected either 
with the management of the worms or the unwinding of the 
cocoons ; but I found with Mr. Robinet, of Paris, who has dis- 
tinguished himself by his attention to this subject, a small and 
ingenious machine for testing the strength of the raw silk. 
There was a graduated index at the back of the machine ; a 
strong pressure was made on two threads of the silk suspended 
from the top of the index, and the degree of pressure or tension 
required to break the thread indicated of course its actual 
strength. 

I can hardly quit this subject without calling upon my readers 
to admire with me the wonderful products of this humble animal. 
The pecuniary value of the product is enormous ; its utility is 
unquestioned and universal ; the amount of industry which it 
sets in motion is immense ; and the splendor and beauty of the 
fabrications, of which it forms the materiel, are unsurpassed. 

15. The Vine. — The next great agricultural product of 
France is that of the vine. The whole extent of land culti- 
vated in vines in France by the last returns was 4,929,950 
acres ; and there is reason to believe that this amount has been 
considerably increased since those returns were obtained. The 
total value of the vine crop in France, reckoning seven gallons 
of wine as required to supply one gallon of brandy, is estimated 
at 59,059,150 francs, or, in round numbers, 11,811,830 dollars, 
or £2,362,366 sterling. It is supposed that six tenths of the 
wine produced are consumed in France ; the remainder forms 
the subject of a lucrative commerce. 

In a moral view, one would at first be inclined to dread the 
effects of such a production upon the habits of the people. It 
would not be true to say there is no drunkenness in France; but, 
account for it as we will, temperance is preeminently the char- 
acteristic of the French people, and I believe them to be without 
question the most sober of all civilized countries. In the rural 
districts, wine is the ordinary drink ; but this is not in itself a strong 
wine, and is almost invariably diluted with water. Much com- 
plaint has been made that such immense tracts of land are devoted 
to the production of wine instead of bread ; but, in many of the 
bread-growing countries, a far larger proportion in value of the 



CROPS. 



497 



product has been devoted to the manufacture of a drink far more 
intoxicating, and much more fatal to peace, pubUc order, domes- 
tic happiness, and all good morals, than the mild and ordinary- 
wines of P^rance ; which, when unadulterated, are the pure juice 
of the grape, and have not the strength of common cider. I was 
in the vine-growing countries in the season of the vintage, when 
wine in the greatest abundance was free to all, but there was no 
more excess than at any other season. We could hardly expect 
these laborious people, whose chief solid subsistence is bread, to 
limit themselves to water ; and I could not but feel grateful that 
God had given them so innocent and delicious a beverage to 
cheer and sustain them under their toil. It is not the use but 
the abuse of these gifts of Heaven, which constitutes the crim- 
inality, and converts them into a fatal poison. 

Various attempts have been made in different periods to limit 
the cultivation of the vine. In one case, after a severe scarcity, 
one of the Roman monarchs ordered the whole of the vines in 
certain provinces to be destroyed, and more than half the vines 
in other provinces ; and several kings of France have prohibited 
the occupation of land beyond a certain amount in the culture 
of the vme, that the people might be compelled to the cultiva- 
tion of bread. Such interference on the part of governments in 
private concerns, and such arbitrary measures, seldom effect the 
desired end. The culture of the bread-grains is, imquestionably, 
always of the first importance ; but arrangements of this kind 
are generally much better left to private interest than to public 
control. The principal objection to the culture of the vine is, 
that it is in no respect subsidiary to any other crop ; that it occupies 
the land permanently, without permitting any other crop ; and 
that the vines require much manuring, (though they do not always 
get it,) without furnishing the materials for producing anymanure. 
Some persons have ploughed or dug in the cuttings and waste 
parts of the vine, and it is said with extraordinary success : but 
the practice is not much extended. 

The vines are ordinarily raised from cuttings in a nursery, and 
transplanted at one year old, generally in rows about four feet 
asunder each way ; but farther when it is intended to plough 
between them. Generally the land is dug with a spade ; the 
old wood cut away in the spring, and the new trimmed, leaving 
three buds only. They arc then striked, and trained to these 
42* 



498 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Stakes, which are from four to five feet in height. At the har- 
vest they are gathered with great adroitness, the clusters being 
cut with a knife or scissors, and carried to the pressing-house in 
casks or carts. The whole process, afterwards, resembles pre- 
cisely the manufacture of cider, excepting that I saw no straw 
used in laying up what is called the cheese, the stems of the 
vines supplying the place of straw, in giving compactness to the 
heap : and that there is no breaking or crushing of the grapes, as 
of the apples, before they are put under the press. The juice, 
as it comes from the grape, is always white ; but it is colored by 
leaving the stems and skins of the grapes in the vat with the 
liquor twenty-four hours after it is expressed. The after-man- 
agement of the wine, where it is kept pure, consists in straining, 
and different drawings off and bottling, very much like the man- 
agement of the best cider ; above all things, watching over the 
casks to preserve them from must or any offensive substance. 

The different kinds of wine take their names from the differ- 
ent covmtries or vineyards in which they are produced. I cannot 
persuade myself that the grape itself has not much to do w^ith 
the quality of the wine ; but the constant reply to my inquiries 
was, that the character of the wine depended mainly upon the 
particular locality in which it was grown, upon some peculiarity 
in the aspect, or some unknown quality of the soil. I have no 
doubt the particular quality of the grape has its full share, and 
other circumstances besides those which I have enumerated. 
The adulteration of wines, their mixture, and their fabrication 
out of materials wholly foreign from the grape, are carried on. 
undoubtedly, to a great extent, especially in the cities ; as, 
indeed, in what country are not such adulterations more or less 
prevalent, as the condition of the market may render them 
profitable ? 

In France the appearance of a vineyard presents nothing very 
picturesque, though in the season of harvest it is extremely rich, 
as I have travelled for miles and miles through vineyards loaded 
with this delicious fruit. The fields in France are very rarely 
separated by fences or ditches; but many facts have come to my 
knowledge, and some within my own personal observation, which 
convinced me that nowhere are the rights of property more 
scrupulously respected. In Italy, especially in the fertile plains 
of Lombardy, the vines arc trained from tree to tree, sometimes 



CROPS. 499 

covering a whole tree with their thick and umbrageous foli- 
age ; and the purple clusters of the fruit, hanging over the tree 
in the richest abundance, remind one of some of the earliest 
temptations to which our frail race are said to have been 
subjected. 

In passing up the Rhine, after entering upon the highlands, 
the base of which the waves of this magnificent river have 
swept for so many ages, one is absolutely struck with amaze- 
ment at the examples of industry, labor, and enterprise which 
every where present themselves, in the cultivation of the vine, 
wherever a favorable aspect presents itself. The steepest acclivi- 
ties are walled up in successive steps or zigzag lines, from the 
bottom to the top of very high hills, so as to create or obtain 
some little flat surface for the planting of the vines, and to pre- 
vent the washing of the dirt from their roots. Where there is 
no soil, soil has been transported on the shoulders of men and 
women in baskets, for no horse or mule could possibly ascend 
many of these heights; and where there has been no other 
method of securing the soil and the vine, these baskets full of 
soil have been placed, and there remain, that the plant may have 
a footing. The manure, too, to supply these vines, must be 
carried up, and the produce must all be brought down upon 
human shoulders. The labor performed here seems almost 
incredible. The German wines bear a high price, and these 
situations produce those of the best quality. The celebrated 
Johannisberg wine is grown upon the banks of the Rhine, at a 
magnificent place owned by the distinguished Prince Metter- 
nich, and is said to be a source of great profit. The delighted 
traveller has the opportunity of at least feasting his eyes on this 
beautiful vineyard, and this rich and picturesque country. 

A vineyard, if well cared for, will last an indefinite number 
of years. The worst wines grown in France are represented to 
be the most profitable, as they pay either none, or the lightest 
duties, and being sold at a cheap rate, they never want con- 
sumers. 

16. Olives. — The cultivation of the olive-tree, both for 
comfits or pickles, and for the oil obtained from the fruit, is 
considerably extended in France, and still more in Southern 
Italy. The extent of land appropriated to the growth of the 



S0O EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

olive in France is stated to be about 303,000 acres. The cul- 
ture is limited to the southern portions of France, as the tree 
does not endure any considerable degree of cold. The money 
value of the product in France is estimated at 22,776,398 francs, 
or 4,555,279 dollars, for sale; and the value of that which is 
consumed is reckoned at 23,102,841 francs, or 4,620,568 dollars, 
or £924,113 sterling. This is a great product for a perma- 
nent article. The oil-cakes left after the expression of the oil 
are considered as very valuable for cattle, and their value defrays 
some portion of the expense of expressing the oil. 

The olive groves or orchards in Southern Italy are very exten- 
sive. Looking out from the high grounds in the neighborhood 
of Florence upon the enchanting valley of the Arno, it appears 
like an almost uninterrupted grove of olives as far as the eye can 
reach. It is difficult to conceive of a richer, more beautiful, or 
more picturesque landscape than is here spread before the eye ; 
combining a charmingly varied surface, with cities crowning the 
summits, and white palaces glittering among the richest foliage, 
the river winding its gentle and silver stream through the whole 
length of the valley, amidst forests and fields of the deepest and 
most luxuriant vegetation. 

The olive-trees are of long endurance. Some orchards were 
shown me to which tradition ascribes an age of eight hundred 
years ; the condition, however, either from age or neglect, was 
not flourishing. More than a hundred different kinds of olive- 
trees are mentioned in France, diff'ering in the quality of their 
product, and in their adaptation to different soils and tempera- 
ture. New varieties are occasionally produced by sowing the 
seed in nurseries. The trees are planted in squares in the fields, 
at the distance of five or six yards apart, more or less, according 
as the soil is dry or humid, nearer to each other in the former 
case than in the latter. The trees should be well manured either 
with stable manure or compost ; it is advised to dig round the 
trees every spring and autumn. The field should be cultivated, 
taking care to guard against injury to the roots, with the plough : 
and, if grain is sown, that portion of the plant near the roots of the 
trees should be dug in while green, and before the grain is formed. 

The great enemies of the olive-trees arc the cold, and certain 
insects. The severe cold in 1820 and 1836 destroyed a great 
many trees in France. Many insects infest the trees, which 



GENERAL VIEWS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 501 

sometimes prove destructive, against which remedies are pre- 
scribed hke those employed against the insects which infest the 
apple-trees. How far it might be successfid to introduce the 
cuUivation of the olive-tree into the Southern States of the 
United States, I must, after the above account, leave the parties 
interested to judge. 

The fig was growing freely in Italy in the open air, and by 
the road-side. This was in the month of August. 



CXX VII. — GENERAL VIEWS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 

I have now gone over the principal crops produced in France, 
with the exception of some which will come under review in 
treating of the husbandry of Flanders, where these crops are 
grown with more skill and success than in France. 

I think my readers will have reached a conclusion to which I 
early arrived, which is, that the agriculture or husbandry of 
France is a subject of much greater importance, and conducted 
with much more skill than is generally thought. There are 
several subjects connected with it upon which I shall speak here- 
after. In many parts, I may add in large parts of the country, the 
cultivation is inferior, negligent, and extremely discreditable. 
France, however, is not the only country to which these remarks 
apply ; but it must be said of France, that in some of their prin- 
cipal crops, those to which their climate is adapted, to which 
they have been habituated, and which they have found to yield 
the largest profit, no persons have advanced further than they. 
I instance only the production of beet-sugar, which must be 
taken in connection with the residue or refuse of the manufacture, 
furnishing so rich and useful an aliment for cattle and sheep. 
This production is enormous, and constantly increasing ; next, 
the production of silk, which furnishes so valuable and simple a 
resource for the poor, and which, followed out in its various 
ramifications, will be found to set so many thousands, nay, hun- 
dreds of thousands, of industrious hands in motion ; and lastly, 
its production of wine, so important an article of domestic con- 
sumption, and so large an article of commerce. I am not of 



502 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

opinion that perfection has been reached in either of these arti- 
cles of culture, — for to what that is human does that term 
perfection^ in any but the most qualified sense, apply ? — but 
certainly the culture of these articles is pursued with the most 
exemplary diligence and enterprise ; I may add, with as much 
diligence and enterprise as are applied in any cultivation in any 
country, and with success. 



CXXVIII. — FARM NEAR VERSAILLES. 

I shall hereafter recur to the subject of the agriculture of 
France ; but I may in this place say, that I have met examples 
of farming in France, which for excellence of culture and 
arrangement, and the success of the farming, are nowhere within 
my knowledge exceeded. A farm in the neighborhood of Ver- 
sailles, with the intelligent proprietor of which I had the pleasure 
of an intimate acquaintance, in its excellent management may 
be considered as a model farm. It consists of about seven hun- 
dred acres. The husbandry is of a mixed kind ; a large milking 
stock is kept on the farm, which, though not reared on the farm, 
are very carefully selected ; and kept and fed in well-arranged 
and capacious stables, where the best arrangements by gutters 
and cisterns are made for collecting and saving all the liquid as 
well as all the solid manure. Abundant crops of lucern are 
grown both for green feeding and hay, and likewise of sainfoin. 
Good crops of wheat are likewise raised, and of colza. Carrots 
are cultivated extensively for the stock ; and potatoes especially 
for the manufacture of starch. This manufacture, very simple 
in its character, constitutes a large object of attention ; and what 
with the potatoes grown upon the place, and those which are 
})urchased, more than one hundred thousand bushels are used in 
this manufacture in the course of the year. The refuse water or 
liquor from this fabrication is first collected in tanks or open 
reservoirs, where it makes a considerable deposit from the matter 
still floating in it. The liquid portions are conveyed by small 
channels or canals on to the grass-fields, which are thus irrigated, 
and the solid portions are taken out and spread. The effect of 
this manure is extremely beneficial, and it scarcely differs in 
strength from the best animal or stable manure. 



FARM ACCOUNTS. 603 



CXXIX. — FARM ACCOUNTS. 

At no place have I seen a more complete system of farm 
accounts than at this farm. The books are kept with the great- 
est accuracy ; so that the result is seen at once, and any specific 
loss or gain is traced to its proper source. Through the kindness 
of the owner, I was enabled to procure a form of these accounts. 
1 subjoin it, thinking I can give few things of the kind tnore 
valuable to my readers. The great and almost universal fault 
of farmers is, that through ignorance or neglect they can hardly 
be said to keep any accounts ; sometimes merely a few memo- 
randa in an interleaved almanac, or a few chalks behind the 
door ; or if they keep books, they are often confused, are seldom 
balanced, and the farmer never arrives at a result upon which he 
can rely. Often, under these circumstances, he finds himself grad- 
ually declining into hopeless bankruptcy, without being able to 
ascertain the most active and certain causes. The ship is filling, 
but he cannot detect the leak, nor consequently the means of 
stopping it. He may call all hands to work day and night at 
the pumps, but with little hope of saving the vessel until the 
fatal inlet is discovered ; and that may prove too late. 

Under the system adopted by this excellent farmer, an account 
is kept with every crop, with the stable, the cow-house, the 
sheep-fold, the poultry-yard, the laborers, and the farm-house. 
Each is regularly charged with every item on the debit side, and 
credited with every return which it makes. The whole is then 
brought into a general resume ; an account of stock is taken ; 
and the books balanced once a year with the accuracy of a 
banker's clerk. 

Take, for example, his Winter In other columns are ar- 
Wheat : it is charged with ranged 

Ploughing, harrowing, and rolling. The extent of the land in wheat 
Manures. Product in grain and in straw. 
Seed. Product by the acre. 
Reaping, and binding, and stacking. Value of the grain and of the straw. 
Threshing, measuring, and storing. Total value of the product- 
Transporting and marketing. Value per acre. 
Rent of land. Profit of the cultivation, 
Total of expenses. or 
Expense per acre. Loss. 



504 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



The account of each crop is kept in this form in a book 
ruled in separate cohimns for this purpose. The history of the 
crop, such as the time of sowing and of reaping, is given at the 
bottom of the page ; and the average yield of the crop for the 
ten preceding years. 

The account of the Stable is kept in this form: — 



Credits to the Stable. 

Labors upon the Farm — ploughing, 
&c. 
" Upon the road. 
Manure. 

Profit or loss. 



Expenses. 

Feeding of the horses. 
Utensils and furniture for the stables. 
Equipages — Harnesses, saddlery. 
Carriages. 
Farriery. 
Wagoners and ostlers — Wages and 

expenses on the road. 
Board of wagoners and ostlers. 
Extraordinary expenses. 



The expenses of the Sheep-fold are kept as follows : The 
account opens with the 1st of July, and finishes with the 30th 
of June. 



Account is taken of the num- 
ber of 

Flocks. 
Sheep. 
Lambs. 
Rams. 



A second column gives the 
account of purchases ; and 
another of sales, during the 
year. 

A fourth column gives the 
number of flocks, sheep, 
lambs, and rams, at the end 
of the year. 



The next chapter embraces the several items of expense, such 



aS' 



Cost of feed. 
Medicines or drugs. 
Driving and folding. 
Hurdles, troughs, &c. 
Transporting and expenses of mar- 
keting. 
Shepherds — their wages. 
" " board. 

Straw for litter 
Total of expenses. 



Other columns give the esti- 
mated value of the flock at 
the beginning and close of 
the year. 

Returns from the sale of sheep. 

« " " wool and skins. 

" " the value of manure. 

" " the benefit from folding. 

Profit or loss. 



FARM ACCOUNTS. 



505 



The account of the Cow or Milk establishment is kept in the 
same form ; the various items, as follow : — 

Keeping of the cows. Number of cow3, and their value at 

Cost of cows. the beginning of the year. 

Care of thera. Expense of cows purchased. 

Utensils. Number of calves. 

Expense of the sale of milk. Returns from milk or butter sold. 

Litter for the stables. " " calves. 

Value of manure. 



The Poultry-yard, embracing also the Pigs, is brought under 
a similar supervision, and the accounts of the whole year, in 
expenses and returns, are carefully preserved and adjusted. 

The account of manures is likewise kept : — thus. 
Manures purchased. Loading and unloading. Compost heaps. 

Transportation of manure. Spreading. Folding. 

Straw for litter. Oil-cakes purchased. 



The general expenses of the 
account : — 

Overseers and their travelling ex- 
penses. 

Bookkeeper, stationery, and postage. 

Wages and clothing for the servants. 

Journeyings, hunting, dogs. 

Time of horse for service of the 
family. 

Insurance against fire and hail. 

Taxes. 

Utensils and furniture. 



Farm are then brought into the 

Wood and cutting fuel. 
Measuring ground. 
Mole and rat catcher. 
Workmen, by the day or task. 
Expense of wagons and farriery. 
Saddlery and harness. 
Bedding and linen. 

Painter, glazier, carpenter, blacksmith, 
ironmonsfer. 



The specific expenses of the household are next brought into 
account : — 



Kitchen expenses. 

Cellar. 

Eatables. 

Groceries. 

Butcher. 

Baker. 

Wood and charcoal. 

Household and kitchen furniture. 



Beer. 

Products of the farm consumed, such 
as milk and cream, eggs, poultry, 
mutton, pork, potatoes, fruits and 
vegetables, butter, and cheese. 

Presents to servants. 

New Year's and Christmas gifls. 

Care and medicine in sickness. 



Miscellaneous expenses follow : — 

For the poor, charitable gifls. Meat, bread, wood, medicine, boarding, 

Education of poor children. clothing, fruits and vegetables. 

VOL. II. 43 



506 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

Expenses : — 

Civic charges at the mayory. For a public engine and carriage to 

To the police officers, or country protect against fire, 
watch. 

I have thus given the items of accounts kept on this excellently 
managed estate, not so much to recommend the precise form in 
which they are kept, as to show their particularity and exactness. 
The great value of this extreme precision is, that the owner is at 
once enabled to discover what are the particular sources or occa- 
sions of expense, and to determine, if it should be necessary or 
expedient, what he may at once retrench or forego. The keep- 
ing of such accounts requires time and care, and, perhaps, in this 
case, they may be too much extended. But a careful and orderly 
arrangement, together with punctuality and exactness, so that 
the work may never get into confusion or arrears, will overcome 
much of the difficulty. The satisfaction and advantages arising 
from it, will be a full compensation for the labor and expense 
which it may require. I cannot understand why on a large farm 
a bookkeeper should not be kept as much as in any shop or other 
trading concern. 

I only add, that I have the results of the accounts of this farm 
from 1816 to 1846 — thirty years ; that the receipts vary consid- 
erably, as products and prices vary ; but that, in not more than 
three years in the thirty, was there any loss, and in the other 
cases a fair and reasonable gain. 



CXXX. — AGRICULTURE OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 

I pass now to the agriculture of Belgium or Flanders. My 
remarks will embrace the whole of the Low Countries, Holland 
as well as Flanders. Though they differ in many particulars, 
yet they may be considered together. I entered these beautiful 
countries, beautiful in the eye of an agriculturist from the rich- 
ness of their crops, and the perfection of their cultivation, in the 
month of June ; and I confess my expectations, excited as they 
were, were more than answered. 



THE SOIL. THE DIKES AND POLDERS, 507 



CXXXL — THE SOIL. 

A great portion of these countries may be considered as allu- 
vial ; much of it formed from the recession of the sea and the 
elevation of the land ; much by the gradual encroachments of 
the land upon the sea, as where, by the meeting of the tides 
with the streams of some of the great rivers, which here, by 
various channels, find their passage into the sea, a sand bank is 
formed, and presently, by successive deposits of mud brought 
down by the streams, an island or outstretching point is produced, 
which is gradually raised above the level of the tides ; and, 
lastly, by the actual embankment by dikes of immense tracts, 
which still remain many feet below the lev'el of the sea, and 
which form extensive basins or enclosures of almost unsurpassed 
fertility. 



CXXXIL — THE DIKES AND POLDERS. 

The extent and magnitude of these embankments is matter 
of inexpressible surprise ; and one is compelled to ask, where 
and who are the men of such unconquerable and gigantic enter- 
prise as to raise these extraordinary mounds ; thus to defy the 
ocean ; and thus to effect conquests, than which none more 
brave, illustrious, or beneficent, are recorded in history, and com- 
pared with which, military conquests seem to deserve only the 
execration of mankind ? 

The external dikes are from one hundred and twenty-five to 
one hundred and fifty feet in width at the bottom, with spacious 
roads on the top of them ; and in several cases the water requires 
to be lifted twice before it is thrown into the sea. These im- 
mense tracts of land, which have been thus redeemed from the 
sea, are denominated polders. These polders are said to average 
more than eleven hundred acres each ; and that four hundred 
and thirty-six polders, embracing an extent of 170,000 acres, are 
kept dry by eight hundred and fifteen mills. The water to be 



508 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



removed is of course the fresh water from rain, or the water from 
springs, and some, doubtless, from the infihration of the sea. 
The work of one mill is required to keep six hundred acres suffi- 
ciently free from water. The whole amount of this poldered or 
redeemed land in Holland is represented to exceed five millions 
of acres — an amount to be redeemed from the sea scarcely within 
the limits of credibility. But the original erection of these dikes 
is not the whole amount of labor which they demand — a 
demand which knows no interruption nor cessation. It is said, 
upon competent authority, that had the original dike at Walche- 
ren been made of solid copper, it would have cost less than it has 
cost in its formation and repairs. 

I present here a sketch of the polder of Snaerskerke, given by 
Radcliffe from the government survey. This polder contains 




Sketch of the Polder of Snaersker}<£. 



about thirteen hundred acres, and was drained by order of Napo- 
leon. " The creek, with its minor branches, by which the tide 
overspread nearly the entire surface, is traced, to point out its 
original state ; but that has now given way to the regular 
divisions and arrangements marked by the parallel lines, which 



THE DIKES AND POLDERS. 509 

describe the present circumstances and appearance. The facility 
of this improvement is so obvions, that it is only surprising it 
should have remained so long unexecuted ; the banks of more 
ancient polders, which nearly surrounded this, having rendered 
it unnecessary to do more than to shut out the sea at one point 
of influx, about fourteen hundred and fifty feet in extent." Let 
us look next at the pecuniary result of this improvement. "The 
land which has been reclaimed by it was let for a sheep-pasture, 
at twenty-five pounds sterling, or about one hundred and twenty- 
five dollars, and was thrown up by the farmer as untenable. 
Upon being dried by this summary improvement, the lots, of 
which there are one hundred, of thirteen acres each, were sold 
by auction at an average of £291 13 s. 4 d. each, or about 1458 
dollars, and would now bring nearly double that sum."* 

A great work of this same kind is now going on, which is no 
other than to drain the Harlaem Lake, and lay the bottom dry 
for cultivation. This great work has been some time in progress 
by means of powerful steam-engines, and when completed will 
lay dry about 50,000 acres.f The extent proposed to be drained 
is said to be seventy square miles. Another tract which has 
been laid bare contains 18,000 acres. It is impossible to con- 
template these mighty and beneficent achievements but with the 
most profound admiration. But if an immense labor and expense 
have been devoted to their creation, a corresponding vigilance, a 
vigilance most laborious, indefatigable, and unceasing, is required 
to maintain them. The inhabitants of this great country sleep 
always in the immediate neighborhood of an enemy's camp, and 
are exposed to irruptions and invasions, against which all human 
power may be unavailing. The recollection of the floods, which 
have occasionally broken away these barriers, and swept the 
country, is perfectly terrific. In the course of thirteen centuries | 
no less than one hundred and ninety great floods are said to have 
occurred in Holland ; so that a destructive inundation may be 



^= Radcliffe's Flanders. 

f It is stated, that in order to exhaust the lake, 3000 millions of tons of water 
must be raised ; and in order to keep it dry, 54,000,000 of tons must be raised 
annually ; and sometimes 20,000,000 of this in one or two months. What a 
gigantic project! 

J From 516 to 1825. 

43* 



510 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

said to have occurred as oftea as once in seven years, and the 
years so late as 1808 and 1825 were marked by great floods. In 
1230, 100,000 persons are reported to have perished, witli cattle 
innumerable. In 1410, 20,000 persons were drowned ; and in 
1570 an equal number. In 1717, the flood is reported to have 
destroyed 12,000 men, 6000 houses, and 80,000 cattle. The sea 
has been known, in some cases, to have risen eight feet above 
the dikes. These events are certainly among the most tremen- 
dous in history, and evince the extraordinary courage and per- 
severance of a people, who again repel the merciless invader, 
and bravely plant themselves directly upon the recovered field. 



CXXXIIL— THE WATER MACHINERY OR MILLS. 

These countries have to exercise a double guard ; the first 
against the irruption of the ocean, and the second against the 
overflowing of the great rivers, which, fed by streams from 
mountains covered with eternal snows, here divide into many 
branches on their way to the ocean ; and likewise from the rain 
which falls, and has no way of escape but as it is pumped up and 
turned off" into the rivers or the sea. In some cases, six, eight, 
and ten feet of water have been removed ; it is stated " that in 
one case, a depth of more than thirteen feet required to be 
removed on land more than eight feet below the high water of 
the river into which it was necessary it should be discharged. 
It was raised into a reservoir, and let into the river at low water. 
The water required to be raised by successive lifts twenty-two 
feet — not an uncommon hft in Holland." The machines by 
which this water is raised are windmills, made with extraordinary 
care and expense, and presenting to the unaccustomed eye a 
peculiar but not unpleasing appearance. I counted more than 
two hundred in sight at one time, and was told that more than 
four hundred might be seen. These are variously constructed, 
some of them with a spiral screw working in a box to which the 
screw was exactly fitted, and by which large amounts of water 
were forced up without any heavy pressure upon the machinery. 



THE WATER MACHINERY OR MILLS. 511 

In other cases, the water was lifted with a simple paddle-wheel 
working in a common trough. It is stated that one mill will 
free six hundred acres from water ; but it is obvious that this 
must depend upon various circumstances, such as the quantity 
of water to be removed, and the kind of machinery employed. 
The most constant vigilance is required to take advantage of all 
the wind that blows. To give some idea of the expense of these 
operations, a mill is said to cost from 8000 to 14,000 dollars, or 
from £1600 to £2800 sterling, and its operation costs 300 dollars 
or £60 sterling a year. Many of the persons who have the care 
of these mills live in them with their families. 

These are all windmills. Steam-engines would probably be 
as little expensive, and more under command. Most of these 
mills w^ere erected before the use of steam in this way was 
known ; but a reason given for preferring wind to steam is, that, 
as Holland has no coal, in the event of war she might be with- 
out fuel, and consequently unable to work steam-engines, the 
disastrous consequences of which it is not necessary to dwell 
upon. 

Such are the mighty works, as well indeed they may be called 
so, which arrest the admiration of the visitor to this reclaimed 
and fertile region, so marked by the most extraordinary enter- 
prise. They inspire a profound sentiment of the hardihood and 
enterprise, the courage and indefatigable perseverance, of the 
people who undertook, achieved, and have maintained them. 



CXXXIV. — FLEMISH AGRICULTURE. 

The agriculture of Flanders is chiefly arable. To give a 
detailed account of its various crops and their culture, would be 
to compose a large work ; and I shall therefore limit myself to 
noticing those peculiarities in their practice by which their culti- 
vation is distinguished, with such remarks upon particular crops 
as seem interesting and useful. Flanders itself is to some extent 
a redeemed country ; and the Flemish have also their polders 
and embankments, canals and dikes. 



512 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

I begin by saying that the agriculture of Flanders is superior 
to that of any country which I have visited. I do not say that 
in England, Scotland, France, and Switzerland, I have not seen 
single farms as well cultivated as any I have seen in Flanders ; 
certainly in the Lothians in Scotland, in Northumberland, in 
Norfolk, in Lincolnshire, in Bedfordshire, in Berkshire, in Cam- 
bridgeshire, in Staffordshire, and in other places, I could single 
out particular farms and considerable districts where the cultiva- 
tion is carried to a high degree of perfection and productiveness: 
but taking into view the large portion of Flanders which I have 
visited, for neatness, exactness, and thoroughness of cultivation, 
for the evenness and magnificence of the crops, for the propriety 
and exactness of the rotation, for the economy and excellent 
modes of applying their manures, and for the obvious and dis- 
tinguished improvements made in the soils, this country seems 
unsurpassed. It is not a little humiliating that this has been 
done by a people comparatively without education, with no pre- 
tensions whatever to what is called agricultural science, and with 
few implements, and those far from being the most improved. 
To say, however, that they are without education and agri- 
cultural science, is a great misnomer. They have the surest of 
all science, that which grows out of long experience, and which 
comes from the application of the mind, sharpened by necessity, 
to whatever is passing within its own province, and avails itself 
of all the lessons which that experience suggests. I am far from 
thinking that with them the ultimatum of improvement has 
been reached. I should regret to find any where, in any science 
or art, the door of inquiry closed ; but at present they may con- 
gratukite themselves with having reached a degree of improve- 
ment which many other countries, with superior advantages in 
other respects, have not as yet approached. Though their im- 
plements have been imperfect, there is yet an obvious reason 
why they have been effectual. The great agricultural instru- 
ment in Flanders is a spade. We are contriving all kinds of 
implements which sliall lessen human labor. We want all sorts 
of machines which shall, if possible, do the work of or by them- 
selves. We want that they should be impelled by wind or by 
steam, or by brute force ; and we would be glad, as far as possi- 
ble, to dispense with the necessity of personal superintendence. 
The Flemish farmers reluct at no personal superintendence or 



THE soil; and size of farms. 513 

toil ; and even an inferior implement, with a thinking and direct- 
ing mind at the end of it, may be more efficient than many a 
more complicated or better contrived machine, which is expected 
almost to make its own way. 



CXXXV.— THE SOIL; AND SIZE OF FARMS. 

The soils of Flanders are generally inferior ; but they illus- 
trate the Latin proverb, that persevering labor overcomes all 
difficulties. In many instances, the farmers plant themselves 
upon an almost hopeless blowing sand, which would seem to 
defy all vegetation. They will begin by planting oats, or rye, 
and broom ; the oats or rye are used for forage, and so are the 
tops of the broom, which remains in the ground three years, 
and is then ploughed in to form and enrich the soil ; and when 
by degrees they can advance so far as to grow turnips or clover, 
so as to feed a cow, the way of success is open. In such case, 
all manure, solid and liquid of every kind, is saved with care, and 
the whole redoubles itself; and after a time is witnessed the 
conversion of this arid sand into a productive soil. 

The size of farms in Flanders is small, in many cases not 
exceeding fifty acres ; often less than this, and not more than 
six or seven acres. The amoinit produced, upon even the 
smallest holdings, is remarkable, and presents an advantageous, 
and often an instructive contrast with the product of large farms. 



CXXXVL — THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL, TRENCH- 
ING, PLOUGHING, MANURING. 

1. The first characteristic of Flemish husbandry is their deep 
cultivation. In some cases this is done by the spade, in others 
by the plough, and sometimes conjointly by the plough and 
spade. The land is gradually trenched to the depth of twenty 



514 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

inches or more. The land for grain being laid out in stitches, 
six or seven feet wide, in the intervals a deep trench or ditch is 
dug, say of a foot in width. The next year, in cultivating this 
same land, a foot in width will be taken from the side of this 
stitch and thrown into the ditch or open space, widening, of 
course, the next bed to the extent to which it is cut off from the 
other ; filling up the trench of the preceding year, and forming a 
new trench. This is repeated year after year, until, according 
to the width of the stitch or bed, the whole ground is gone over 
to the depth of a doable spading. At the same time, as the suc- 
cessive crops have followed each other, the ground has been 
carefully improved by manure, until a fine rich and mellow bed 
of soil is formed. This operation resembles snbsoiling, with this 
dilference, that the work is more thoroughly and carefully done 
with a spade than it can ever be with a plough. A deep soil, 
where properly enriched, is obviously most favorable to vegeta- 
tion. The air itself is a great enriclier of the ground ; water, 
another great element of fertility, passes through a well-cultivated 
soil, leaving its fertilizing influences, without becoming stagnant, 
and so injuring the soil. All plants do not equally require deep- 
ness of soil, yet even the plants which appear most superficial 
often extend the fine tendrils of their roots in search of food 
much farther than the eye can follow, or than is generally sup- 
posed. A French farmer states that he has found the roots from 
a plant of wheat extending five feet. All tap-rooted plants, such 
as clover or carrots, frequent crops in Flanders, of course demand 
a deep culture. 

The first object, then, of the Flemish farmer, is to get a deep 
and friable soil, well enriched, and, as far as possible, equally 
enriched throughout. This is done with great painstaking, and 
the whole resembles the most beautiful garden cultivation. Even 
where it is ploughed, the trenches at the sides of the field, and 
between the beds, are cleaned out by a spade ; what is taken out 
is laid carefully upon the beds ; and the whole executed with a 
neatnesss and exactness the most particular, and perfectly delight- 
ful to the eye. 

2. SuBsoiLiNG. — They have a peculiar mode of working their 
land in many cases, of which their best farmers tliink very 
highly, and which is well deserving of notice. Immediately 



THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 515 

after the plough has opened the furroAv, workmen follow with a 
spade, and take out from the bottom of the furrow large spade- 
fuls of earth, laying them up upon the turned land. Here they 
remain in lumps until they are reduced to fineness by the warmth 
and air, and spread themselves upon the soil. They have an 
opinion that this is equal to a good manuring. The next furrow 
slice of course falls into these holes, and to some extent there is 
a complete inversion of the surface-soil. This does not answer, 
however, where the land is clayey, or strong and adhesive, as, in 
that case, water would collect and remain in the holes made under 
the furrow with the spade. The object of the Flemish farmer is 
to have the ground thoroughly enriched and friable ; and to give, 
as far as possible, a quick passage for the water which falls upon 
it, and free admission to the air. 

3. Draining. — Nothing can surpass the painstaking of the 
Flemish farmer in the preparation of his soil, as the basis of all 
his etForts, and that on which he rests his hopes of success. I 
have already said, that with a view to get rid of surface water, 
he carefully lays his ground in stitches or beds, narrow or wide, 
in proportion to the quantity of water, which, from the situation 
of the land, may require to be disposed of. If the land is made 
wet by springs, he takes pains to cut off the springs by transverse 
ditches. These he fills with brush, or wooden boughs, and upon 
these he lays stones, and then covers with earth, and thus con- 
veys the water into an open side ditch. This is a primitive mode 
of draining, and not the best which could be chosen ; but after 
the wood has decayed, the channel being once formed, it is likely 
to be kept open for a length of time, by the force of the running 
water. If the wetness of the land proceeds from its low and 
sunken position, or from springs which cannot be cut oft', it 
becomes necessary then to cut it up by open ditches, which are 
made at distances varying according to the nature of the land to 
be drained, and into which the water becomes collected. This 
takes up a considerable portion of the surface, but the compen- 
sation is found by the dryness and availableness of the other 
portions, by which method only these could be secured. This 
is the universal practice upon the polders, and these principal 
ditches are often of sufficient width to proceed upon in boats, in 



516 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

order to take off the produce to the outer edge of the polder, 
where it can be removed in carts. 

4. Mixing the Soil. — ^If the soil upon which he proposes to 
operate be composed, as often happens, of different strata of 
earth, as, for example, of mould, next of a layer of clay, and 
next of sand, he is careful, by a deep trenching, thoroughly to 
stir, and by degrees to intermix and enrich the whole. In truth, 
every effort is made to produce a deep, friable, rich bed for their 
operations ; and by such means soils, which appear at first 
almost worthless, are made productive. Many soils, which in 
their original condition were sterile and comparatively worthless, 
now take rank with the most fertile. 

5. Rotation OF Crops. — Another great feature of Flemish 
husbandry is that of a regular rotation of crops. This is exact, 
and observed with strictness. 

What this rotation shall be, must depend on a variety of cir- 
cumstances. An intelligent farmer will be likely to inquire first, 
to what crop is the soil best adapted, because of this he is likely 
to get the largest product ; what crop is most required for his 
own use or for the market ; what crop is likely least to exhaust 
the soil ; what crop is he best able to manure ; in short, a great 
variety of inquiries growing out of the nature and particular 
condition of the soil, which will determine the course of crops 
to be adopted by the farmer, having in view that which he can 
obtain with the largest profit, the least expense, and the smallest 
injury to the land. What are called green crops, with the excep- 
tion of potatoes, which enter largely into human food, such as 
carrots and turnips, are grown mainly with a view to the 
manure, which they furnish by the animals fed upon them. 
The farm is divided into several portions, and on these different 
portions distinct rotations are proceeding regularly, the aim of 
the farmer being to have a variety of crops growing at the same 
time. In this way he provides best for the supply of his family ; 
having a variety of articles to dispose of, he runs less risk in the 
fluctuations and caprices of the markets ; and he is enabled the 
better to husband and apply his manures. 

I shall here give some examples of these rotations of crops, 
not as furnishing a rule for other places, which may differ very 



THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 



5ir 



much ill various circumstances, but simply as illustrating the 
practice of these careful husbandmen. 

On a soil of a good quality, and on which wheat may be cul- 
tivated, the following rotation is sometimes observed : — 

1. Potatoes. 

2. Wheat, with turnips sowed upon the stubble after the 
harvest. 

3. Oats and clover. 

4. Clover. 

5. Rye, with turnips sowed upon the stubble after the 
harvest. 

6. In grass, to remain as long as it is profitable. 

The farm, in a case like this, will be divided into as many por- 
tions as there are distinct crops, so that all will be growing on 
the same farm at the same time. 

The following rotation is sometimes had : — 

1. Wheat. 5. Clover. 

2. Rye and turnips. 6. Rape. 

3. Oats. 7. Potatoes. 

4. Flax. 

On a very strong soil the following rotation is given : — 

1. Potatoes, 2. Wheat, 3. Beans, 4. Rye, 5. Wheat, 6. Clover, 
7. Turnips, 8. Flax, 9. Wheat, 10. Oats, 11. Fallow, 12. To- 
bacco, 13. Rye, 14. Oats. 

The following rotation is adopted upon a stiff soil : — 

1. Potatoes, with twenty tons of dung per acre. 

2. Wheat, with three and a half tons, and fifty barrels of m-ine. 

3. Flax, with twelve tons of dung, fifty barrels of urine, and 
five cwt. rape cake. 

4. Clover, with twenty barrels of wood ashes. 

5. Rye, with eight tons of dung, and fifty barrels of urine. 

6. Oats, with fifty barrels of urine. 

7. Buckwheat, without manure. 

On a rich loam the following rotation is pursued : — 

1. Turnips, carrots, chicory. 

2. Oats and clover seed. 
VOL. II. 44 



3. 


Clover. 


4. 


Wheat. 


5. 


Flax. 


6. 


Wheat. 


7. 


Beans. 


8. 


Wheat. 



518 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



Wheat occurs in this rotation four times in 
eleven years. Clover, which occurs twice, is 
to be considered as the only enriching crop. 
Manure is applied, however, the first, third, 
/ fourth, seventh, and ninth years. The cul- 
9. Potatoes. V tivation is most careful, and no weeds are 

10. Wheat. 1 spared. 

11. Oats. / 

1 have given these different rotations from Van Aelbroeck's 
account of Femish husbandry. 

It may not be easy to point out in every instance the prin- 
ciples on which these rotations are founded. With the Flemish 
farmers they are the result of long experience and observation. 
Perhaps they might often be changed to advantage. I have 
known, for example, in some parts of the United States, flax 
cultivated to great advantage every fourth year ; and in some 
parts of England, wheat grown every second year. But in each 
case the land was highly manured, and in the former case the land 
was comparatively a new and unexhaus-ted soil. My object in 
going into this subject was not to prescribe a particular course, 
but to illustrate a great principle of Flemish husbandry, which 
will be found equally applicable to every situation. The neces- 
sity of a rotation of crops seems fully established. The kind 
of rotation to be followed must be determined by the peculiar 
circumstances of each locality, remembering only that two crops 
of a similar character must not immediately succeed each other ; 
that the occasional intervention of a cleansing crop — that is, a 
crop which requires thorough weeding — is indispensable ; and 
that those crops which are to be consumed on the farm serve a 
double purpose: in addition to the animals which they sustain, 
they supply the manure which is demanded. The necessity of 
naked fallows — that is, of leaving the land wholly unoccupied 
Avith any crop, that it might recruit itself, and the weeds be 
exterminated by repeated ploughings — is no longer acknowl- 
edged ; and cleansing crops, which are manured, may be substi- 
tuted, greatly to the farnier's advantage. 

6. Manuring. — The next great feature in the Flemish hus- 
bandry lies in their system of manuring. In the first place, they 
manure their land abundantly. In one of the rotations to which 



THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 519 

I have referred, (p. 517,) the first six crops were each of them 
Hberally manured. The seventh, which was buckwheat, and 
completed the course, was without manure. In the next rota- 
tion, (p, 517,) where the rotation extended to eleven crops, five 
of them were manured. That the manuring was of a liberal char- 
acter, is seen in the application of sometimes twenty tons of 
manure to the acre, and sometimes twelve tons, with the addition 
of fifty barrels of urine. Indeed, the first object of a Flemish 
farmer is to increase his stock of manure ; to this end he sufters 
nothing which can be converted into manure to be lost or wasted ; 
and besides that which he makes from his savings and his do- 
mestic animals, he is always ready to purchase manure, where it 
can be foinid accessible — the various canals in the country fur- 
nishing great facilities for its conveyance. Perhaps there is only 
one point in which he is often deficient, and that is, in not raising 
sufficient green food for the support of cattle, with a view to 
increasing his manure. 

7. Liquid Manure. — It is not merely in manuring liberalh' 
that Flemish husbandry is remarkable, but in the particular mode 
of applying this manure. The great object of the Flemish farmer 
is to apply it in a condition to be immediately taken up by the 
plants. Coarse and long manure he ploughs under in the autumn, 
that it may be in a condition to serve the crop which is to be 
sown in the spring. Or, if to be applied in the spring, he so 
works it over and prepares it, that it is in a condition at once to 
serve the plant. But the distinguishing circumstance in Flemish 
husbandry is in the application of liquid manure, both to the land 
before the sowing, and likewise to the growing crop. In such 
case the growing crop immediately receives it ; receives it at a time 
when, perhaps, the manure first applied has begun to lose some- 
what of its efficacy ; and in a form that its efficacy is felt at once. 

The difficulty of applying this liquid manure to the crops on 
the land is often considered an objection to its use ; and there is, 
with many persons, a fastidiousness in regard to the use of it, 
which is quite absurd, and leads to the sacrifice of the most val- 
uable and efficacious manure which is at the command of the 
husbandman. In some cases it is turned into the small ditches 
or furrows between the beds or stitches, and then with a spade 
thrown on to the beds with some of the soil by which it has 
been absorbed. In this case a light plough is sometimes passed 



520 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



through these intervals or small ditches, between the beds, so as 

to loosen the earth by which the liquid has been absorbed. But 

most commonly it is applied directly, 
by means of a cask constructed for 
that purpose, resembling the vehicles 
used for watering the streets of cities. 
In the subjoined diagram the 
liquid from the cask falls into a 
trough placed horizontally, and 
pierced with holes, by which means 
it is very equally distributed. 

In other cases, where the liquid 

^is too thick to be distributed through 

these holes, it is, in passing out, made 

to strike against a plank or board, by which means it is scattered 

evenly upon the ground. Thus : — 





In my opinion, if the liquid was made to fall upon a plank 
which should be placed behind, at a slight inclination, it would 
be more effectually spread. Thus : — 




THE CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 



521 



In case of small farms to which this manm'e is to be applied, 
and where the cultivator has only his own labor of which to 
avail himself, he adopts a method of 
distributing this manure, of which the 
subjoined cut will give an idea ; but 
which, I can easily suppose, may not 
be agreeable to persons not accustomed 
to it. The Flemings, however, reluct 
at no labor by which their objects may 
be obtained. 

In some cases it is transported into 
the field by means of a wheelbarrow, 
with the cask containing the liquid 
suspended between the shafts. There 
are acknowledged inconveniences at- 
tending its application ; but many of 
them are purely ideal, and the extraordinary value of the manure, 
when thus applied, is an ample compensation for any extraordi- 
nary labor or expense, which its saving or its distribution may 
cost. 




8. Cleanness of Cultivation. — Another feature in the 
Flemish husbandry is the cleanness of their cultivation. They 
spare no pains in the eradication of every weed. They have, in 
this matter, much to contend with. An old country under a 
highly-manured cultivation is liable always to be much infested 
with weeds, and especially with the squitch grass, (trilicum 
repens,) which is their chief trouble. What cainiot be accom- 
plished by the plough, or the harrow, or the hoe, is done by 
hand ; and occasional recourse is had to a naked fallow. In such 
case a fallow crop, that is, a cleansing crop, — a crop the culti- 
vation of which would effectually destroy the weeds, — would be 
more eligible. The old doctrine, that the land absolutely 
required rest, with a view to the recruiting of its powers, is now 
exploded. With ample manuring, and a rotation or change of 
crops, its occupation may be unremitted. 
44* 



522 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



CXXXVII. — MANURES. 



I proceed to the subject of manures, as it presents itself in 
Continental husbandry. The Flemish call manure " the god of 
agriculture." Of its importance not a word need be said; and 
the Flemish, in the pains they take in its accumulation and use, 
evince the estimation in which they hold it. Manure is indeed 
the foundation of all good husbandry. 

1. Mineral Manures. — Manures divide themselves popu- 
larly into three kinds — mineral, vegetable, and animal. Of min- 
eral manures, such as lime, gypsum, and marl, the use seems 
well understood; but, within my observation, they are not applied 
to so great a proportional extent as in England and Scotland. 
Lime, or the carbonate of lime, is employed upon lands which 
are clayey, cold, and heavy ; and in such case it answers a double 
purpose, to divide the soil and render it light and friable ; and 
secondly, to warm the soil. That plants take up some portion 
of lime from the soil is established ; but this is so small an ele- 
ment in their composition, that few soils are found deficient in 
the necessary quantity. That it should be applied to the land 
in a caustic or warm state seems likewise an established point. 
Some of the Flemish farmers advise to the mixture of lime with 
earth, and to its application in that form ; but this seems only an 
increase of labor without any obvious advantage. Others advise 
to the mixture of lime with heaps of vegetable matter, so as to 
reduce it ; but, in' such case, it is likely to destroy some of the 
most valuable parts of the manure. The eflicacy of a dressing 
of lime is considered by the Flemings to endure three years ; 
but this must obviously depend upon the quantity api)lied. 
Thirty bushels of unslaked lime after being slaked is consid- 
ered by some farmers a proper application ; while others advise 
the application of thirty bushels each year for three years in 
succession. 

I have met with the frequent application of marl to light lands, 
and to the surface of peat lands, where it soon forms a productive 
soil. The application of gypsum can scarcely be said to be 
general. It is sometimes applied in the ground to the seed of 



MANURES. 



523 



potatoes in the planting, in which case it is generally admitted 
to improve the quality of the potato ; and it is applied also by 
being sown broadcast upon young clover; in this latter case, 
ordinarily with success. The philosophy of its operation is still 
obscure. It is difficult to say why it fails; but it is not less 
difficult to say why it succeeds. It will sometimes be useful, 
and at other times without eftect, in the same locality. This I 
have myself experienced. A very competent farmer in the 
United States gives it as his opinion, and the result of his expe- 
rience, that it sometimes failed of its effects from being too 
coarsely ground, but that it always succeeded when reduced to 
an impalpable powder. 

Much has been said of the value and efficacy of sea salt as a 
manure, and in France great complaints have been made of the 
heavy duty, which in fact prevented its use in this way. A dis- 
tinguished French farmer and experimenter, who has devoted 
much time and expense to this subject, and has furnished most 
exact accounts of liis experiments and observations, has come 
fully to the conclusion that it is of no use whatever as a manure, 
and equally useless in the fatting of animals. These conclusions 
are diiferent from the popular notions, which seem always entitled 
to some respect ; but they are fully borne out by the experiments, 
repeated and varied, of this indefatigable inquirer. 

2. Vegetable Manures. — Of vegetable manures I have only 
to say, that buckwheat and clover are often turned in by the 
plough, and with acknowledged advantage. The Flemish make 
a point of collecting every species of vegetable refuse which they 
can find, all vegetable matter growing upon the sides of the 
roads, and that which is found in the canals. They are careful 
likewise to plough in their stubbles, excepting where there is 
another crop on the ground, such as clover or carrots, which are 
sometimes sown among the grain soon after the crop is harvested. 

Under this head may likewise be placed ashes, of which the 
Flemish make great use. A large part of the fuel consumed in 
Holland is peat or turf, and the Dutch ashes are highly valued as 
dressing for clover. These ashes are imported from Holland 
into Flanders in large quantities in boats, and always find pur- 
chasers. They are applied as a top dressing to dry meadows, as 
well as to clover, and likewise to flax. It is not well determined 
on what their particular efficacy depends. 



524 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The ashes of sea coal or mineral coal are likewise used as a 
manure, but they are deemed very inferior to the Dutch ashes 
properly so called. Heath lands are sometimes lightly skimmed, 
and the heath burnt for the sake of the ashes ; but if it is intended 
to cultivate the land or to plant it for trees, it is deemed hurtful 
to remove the ashes of the surface. Wood ashes and the ashes 
from the soap-boilers are likewise most carefully saved and 
applied. Wood ashes are not easily obtained, because of their 
extensive use in the arts. The ashes from the soap-boilers are 
much esteemed by the Flemish for strong and moist lands, and 
have a value from their containing a considerable quantity of 
lime. The refuse from the bleacherieSj which contains a large 
quantity of soap, is more valued for dry and light lands; both of 
these manures are greatly esteemed for clover and for dry 
meadows. Their effects are understood to last for three years, 
and they are more efficacious the second than the first year. 

The cakes from the colza, or rape, which remain after the oil 
has been expressed, are very much used for manure ; in which 
case they are thrown into the urine cistern, and applied thus 
mixed. They are supposed very much to increase the efficacy 
of this liquid manure. Within a few years, however, as I learnt 
at Courtray, these cakes have been used with advantage for the 
feeding of cows and swine. 

In some parts of France and Belgium the stalks of the colza 
are ploughed in for manure, and sometimes burnt upon the 
ground, reliance being placed upon the efficacy of the ashes ; 
and in some of the wine countries, the cuttings of the vines are 
dug in for manure, it is said, with singular efficacy. It is thus 
that that which has been taken from the earth for the growth of 
a plant, is returned to it as a principal element in the growth 
of the same kind of plant which is to follow. 

Soot is likewise used as a top dressing with great advantage, 
and is considered twice as valuable as ashes. It is applied to the 
young clover and to garden vegetables, and is estimated highly 
for its power in destroying insects. Under good management, 
every article capable of being converted into vegetable food, or 
of enriching the earth, should be saved as manure. 

I have already spoken of the use of the drainings of the factory 
where potatoes are converted into starch ; their effects upon 
grass land were most remarkable. I have in another place 



MANURES. 525 

spoken likewise of the use of the water in which flax has been 
rotted. I have seen the most beneficial results from it ; but I 
am not aware of its use in Flanders. 

Prom the starch factory this water is conveyed into a basin or 
excavation, where, after remaining a short time, it makes a 
considerable deposit. This deposit is taken out and spread upon 
the land, or thrown into and mixed in compost ; and the water 
is drained off, and conveyed upon the field by small ditches 
or rills. 

3. Animal Manures. — The great reliance for manure, how- 
ever, every where is upon animal manure, the excrements of 
animals, and animal substances. One of the most obvious 
deficiencies in French husbandry is a deficiency in manure. 
They are not accustomed to folding sheep upon their lands, as is 
common in British husbandry. They grow very little of escu- 
lent vegetable food for their live stock, such as turnips and car- 
rots ; and their cattle are kept in the winter often very hardly 
upon straw. In summer their cattle are much in the pastures, 
overlooked by a herdsman or a child, so that the manure is 
scattered. 

There is likewise a manufacture of manure called animalice 
noir, which consists in boiling down the flesh of animals, such 
as horses, for example, or animals which have died of disease, 
and are unfit for food ; and after it is boiled, baking it in an 
oven, when it is brought into a state easily to be reduced to 
powder. There is a manufacture of this same kind of manure 
in London ; but, strange to say, the product is exported to 
France. The refuse of the sugar refineries, that is, the animal 
charcoal, or ashes of burnt bones used in cleansing the sugar, is 
highly esteemed as a manure ; but it is advised by the Flemish 
farmers to mix it with their liquid, manures in the urine vault. 
This manure is much employed in France. Its chief value is 
on heath and moist lands. It does no good on rich, highly cul- 
tivated land. It is spread broadcast for grass, and its effects are 
surprising. It is applied to wheat land at the time of the sow- 
ing of the seed ; it is deemed much preferable to apply it in the 
autumn rather than in the spring. It is applied in France at the 
rate of four hectolitres to an acre, which would be at the rate of 
more than eleven bushels. 



526 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

The Swiss, likewise, are remarkable for their care of their 
manures. The heap is usually placed in front of the house, a 
slight excavation beiflg made for it, so as to form a basin into 
which the liquids are drained. The long manure is laid at the 
sides, and doubled in with the greatest care, and no little skill, 
so as to form a neat and compact pile in a square or oblong form. 
This seemed to be almost a universal practice : and the neatness 
and exactness with which it is laid up are quite remarkable. 
The manin-e from the stables and the refuse of the house is 
deposited daily upon it ; and the drainings which run down to 
one end of the basin in which the manure heap is placed, are 
often pumped or dipped up, and returned upon the pile. The 
odor of the heap directly by the door and under the windows of 
the house cannot be agreeable ; but the extreme neatness with 
which it is formed, and the cleanliness and care which mark 
ordinarily every thing about the premises, do much to redeem its 
offensiveness. 

In their economy of manures, in their modes of applying 
them, in their extraordinary liberality in the use of them, the 
palm must be conceded to the Flemish over all other people. 
The best Flemish farmers advise against the general mixing of 
manures. Their doctrine is, that as different animals demand 
different species of food, as well on account of their habits or 
constitution as on account of their taste, so different plants and 
different soils require specific and peculiar manures. I shall not 
discuss the question how far manure is to be considered as the 
food of plants. It is enough for us to know that matuu'es arc 
indispensable to their growth, and that different manures are 
very different in their various properties and effects. The 
manure of the horse is a powerful and warm manure, and con- 
sidered as best suited to lands which are cold and moist. It 
operates quickly ; it lightens the soil ; but its effects pass off 
sooner than those of many other manures. The manure of 
horned animals is deemed more substantial, slower in its opera- 
tion, and more durable in its effects. The Flemish farmers say, 
that where a second crop is raised upon the ground, the effects 
of this manure are more apparent in the second than in the pre- 
ceding crop. It is obvious, however, that the quality of the 
manure must depend very much on the kind of food upon which 
the animals are fed. The simplest experiment made with the 



MANURES. 527 

original and most common of all chemical instruments, the hu- 
man nose, will at once determine the superior cfFicacy of the 
manure of animals highly fed with esculent vegetables and grain 
or meal over that of animals fed upon straw only. The manure 
of swine is considered by the Flemish as of very little comparative 
value, and where used, in order to produce as much effect, they 
advise to employ full double the quantity which they would use 
of cow manure. My own experience has led me to rely upon 
the dung of swine as among the strongest of manures ; and the 
low estimate which the Flemish farmers place upon it must come 
from the hogs among them being fed mainly upon grass ; and 
from what I have seen, both in Belgium and France, being very 
poorly kept at the best. The swill pail, which is found at the 
kitchen door in the United States full of butter-milk and whey 
intermixed with cooked vegetables, broken pieces of meat and 
bread, is, alas ! not to be found at many cottage or farm-house 
doors on the European Continent. The whey and the butter- 
milk are wanted for the table ; and it would be a species of 
sacrilege to give meat, — which a large portion of the laboring 
people seldom or never taste, — or bread, to the swine. The 
dung of swine is, however, in the best cases, to be considered as 
a cold manure, and not easily brought into a state of active fer- 
mentation. 

The dung of sheep is every where highly esteemed. It is 
active and powerful ; and upon light and moist lands they rate 
two loads of the dung of sheep as fully equal to three of the 
manure of other brute animals. It is much used with the oat 
crop ; but it is not advised for flax, as being apt to force it to a 
premature ripeness. Valuable, however, as is the maniu'e of 
sheep, I have seen on the Continent no instance of the excellent 
practice of folding sheep, which prevails so generally in England 
and Scotland. In the hergerie, or sheep-house, where their sheep 
are brought at night, they are careful to spread an abundance of 
litter, which is generally removed twice a year, in the spring 
and autumn. They begin with a simple layer, which the feet 
of the sheep soon reduce to fineness, and so proceed, layer by 
layer, to a depth of three or four feet, which thus becomes, 
throughout its whole thickness, thoroughly impregnated with 
urine. 

In some cases, where the farmer does not find it convenient to 



528 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

purchase or own a flock of sheep, he receives one to keep or 
board for another person. In this case he furnishes straw for 
their litter in the stables on his own account ; and he furnishes 
Avhat hay, or grain, or pulse, they may consume at the expense 
of their owner, at the current prices, or such prices as may be 
agreed upon ; and he boards and lodges the shepherd with his 
two dogs, who has the care of the flock, at about fifty-four dol- 
lars, or eleven pounds sterling, a year. He does this for the sake 
of the manure and of disposing of his produce. In the Lothians, 
Scotland, I found several instances in which the crops of turnips, 
or ruta-baga, were disposed of in the field to persons bringing 
sheep from the interior, to be consumed where they grew. 
Where practicable, this arrangement is excellent. The Flemish 
are of opinion that a hundred sheep, well fed, will give, in a well- 
littered stable or bergerie, from fifty to sixty loads of manure, of 
more value than eighty or ninety loads of any other stable or 
barn manure. 

I have already spoken of the supply of manure obtained by 
the Flemish from the numerous distilleries which existed in 
Belgium, by the immense number of animals which were fed 
and fatted on the refuse grains of those distilleries. But these 
supplies are almost entirely cut off. 

Another species of manure, much valued on the Continent, and 
especially among those careful husbandmen, the Flemish, is that 
of pigeons and barn-door fowls. The superior efficacy of these 
excrements over most other manures is acknowledged. The 
excrements of birds are voided only in one form, and may there- 
fore be supposed to possess the greater strength. This manure 
is saved in Flanders with the greatest care. Contracts are often 
made with persons who keep pigeons for their manure. A hun- 
dred francs, or twenty dollars, is sometimes paid for the manure 
of six hundred pigeons. The manure goes under the name of 
columbine. The saving of this species of manure requires par- 
ticular care. It is advised to spread the floors of pigeon-houses 
and poultry-houses with fine sand, that this manure may be 
thoroughly intermixed with it, and a fermentation be prevented. 
If no care is taken of it, it is wasted, or it becomes full of mag- 
gots and vermin, which infest the birds. Sometimes it is applied 
mixed with water, but oftener in the form of powder. The 
dung of pigeons is considered more powerful than that of barn- 



MANURES. 529 

door fowls ; but the reason is not ascertained. The dung of 
geese is not so much vahied as either, perhaps for the reason that 
they feed on grass. The birds, whose excrements form- the 
guano, feed wholly upon fish. 

Guano has been used to some extent in France, but its use is 
nuich discouraged by the extraordinary adulterations which have 
taken place in it. These adulterations, according to chemical 
analysis, have amounted to ninety per cent. Where it has been 
used, its fertilizing powers have been acknowledged ; but the 
French farmers whom I have met Avitli have not considered it 
superior in efficacy to poudrette, or dried night-soil. On a visit 
to a French farmer, about twenty miles from Paris, the state of 
whose farm would have been creditable in any country, and was 
certainly inferior to that of few farms which I have visited, he 
informed me that he had made trial of stable manure, of guano, 
and of poudrette ; and that he found the guano powerful, that 
the stable manure produced the largest growth, and that the 
poudrette produced the best grain. It is obvious that we want 
many more details and circumstances to form any strong con- 
clusion from this experiment. In all cases, however, among the 
French, which came under my notice, I found a strong approval 
of guano, but the preference given to poudrette. More experi- 
ence may result in a different verdict. 

4. Liquid Manures, and Means of saving them. — The 
preparations for saving the liquid manure, which are universal in 
Flanders, and which are occasionally met with both in France 
and Switzerland, deserve the most particular mention. There 
is good reason to believe, that, if it could be saved and applied 
with equal ease, the liquid manure of an animal is of more value 
than the solid excrements. The Flemish farmers suffer nothing 
of this sort to be lost ; and it is stated that in Ghent the servants 
receive a compensation for saving the waste waters of the house. 

On a Flemish farm there is always a urine cistern, usually 
adjoining the stable or cow-house. A gutter or trough behind 
the cattle or the horses conveys all the liquids into this cistern, 
which is placed outside, rather than immediately under the cattle, 
that it may be accessible both for the removal, and the mixture 
of other matters. This cistern is sometimes twenty feet in 
length, twelve in breadth, and six in depth. It is built of bricks, 
VOL. II. 45 



530 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 



and the bottom laid in cement, so as to be water-tight. It is 
sometimes divided into two great compartments, and sometimes 
into several, as in the subjoined diagram. 




These diflerent compartments are designed to preserve the 
liquid of different ages separately. Each compartment is accu- 
rately gauged, and there is a fixed scale in each compartment, or 
in the cistern, where it is not separated, by which, from the 
height of the liquid, the quantity is easily determined. This is 
necessary for two purposes ; first, in case of the sale of the 
manure, and second, in its application to the soil ; in both which 
instances it may be important to know the quantity. In addition 
to the saving of the urine, the stables are frequently washed with 
water, and this likewise runs into the common receptacle. It is 
deemed best not to apply the urine until it has some age, and has 
passed through a degree of fermentation. 

In order to increase their stock of manure, the farmers purchase 
large quantities of manure, such as the emptyings of privies in the 
cities ; and these are carried in boats prepared for the purpose, 
on the different canals, to the farms which are accessible ; and 
many of these farms have places of deposit, or cisterns for the 
reception of this manure, directly upon the borders of a canal, 
that there may be little trouble in discharging the load. This is 
a double good, to the cities and the country ; to the former, in 
getting rid of their impurities, and preventing the diseases which 
they might engender; to the latter, in enriching their lands. In 
many cases these places are used as deposits for the use of manure 
merchants or dealers, who collect large amounts, and dispose of 
it in such quantities as may be needed to the neighboring farmers, 



MANURES. 531 

who buy according to their means or necessities. It is sold by 
the barrel or tun, and is measured by the scale in the tank, or 
the vessel in which it is removed. Sometimes the cisterns are 
covered in with brick, arched, and emptied by means of a pump; 
in other cases they are emptied by means of dippers and buckets ; 
and it is important that they should be accessible, so that the 
sediment may be removed as it may collect. Sometimes the 
cistern is a mere round well sunk in the ground, and emptied by 
a pump. But the form is of little importance, provided it be 
secure and convenient, compared with the matter of saving all 
this refuse, the importance of which I have already most urgently 
insisted upon. To the great credit as well as to the great gain 
of the Flemish farmers, nothing of this kind is ever wasted ; 
and the cleanliness of the Dutch towns and cities is certainly not 
surpassed, and scarcely equalled, by any others. 

A good deal of stress is laid upon having the cistern outside 
of, and detached from, the stable, that the fumes from it may not 
injure the air of the stable, to the prejudice of the health of the 
cattle, or those who tend them ; and likewise on having different 
compartments in the cistern, that the liquid may have obtained a 
certain age before it is applied. They are in the habit, likewise, 
of mixing rape cakes, or the cakes which remain after the oil 
has been expressed from the rape-seed, with the urine, Avhich in 
this way forms a most efficacious manure. These cakes weigh 
generally about half a pound, and are sold by the hundred or 
thousand. The amount of this manure applied to the land is 
often very large ; liberal and ample manuring being one of the 
great principles of Flemish farming. 

5. Compost Heaps. — The Flemish have, likewise, a mode 
of preparing a compost heap, which is greatly approved among 
them. They collect the scrapings of ditches, the vegetable 
matter which is floating in them, heath, bushes, stalks of vege- 
tables, and any waste vegetable matter which they can gather ; 
with this they mix a certain quantity of earth or soil, and then 
add quicklime in about the proportion to the heap of one tenth 
or one fifteenth. This heap is several times shovelled and cut 
up with a spade, until it is in a state of sufficient fineness to be 
applied to the field. In the Pays de Waes, a district of country 
between Ghent and Antwerp, the cultivation of which is not 



532 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

surpassed in any part of the country, perhaps not in the world, 

— for I can hardly think of any culture more exact, more clean, 
or more beautiful, or any crops more luxuriant than I saw here, 

— the practice of the farmers is to place this heap near the side 
of the field intended to be cultivated, and then to pour upon it a 
copious sprinkling from the cisterns ; the heap is then shovelled 
over, and the whole thoroughly intermixed ; in which case it 
becomes an excellent manure to be applied before sowing. 

6. Jauffret's Manure. — The preparation of Jauffret, which 
has had much celebrity in France, deserves notice here. I have 
seen one similar applied, and with success, as far as the object 
aimed at was concerned, in the United States. The object of 
this invention was to find some means by which straw, brush, 
ferns, heaths, broom, and other woody substances, might be 
speedily brought into a state of decomposition, so that the mix- 
ture might be applied to the land. He supposes it possible to 
supply nutriment to the land in this way, without the aid of ani- 
mals. He advises, therefore, to collect a heap of materials com- 
posed of vegetable matter, such as straw, ferns, heath, broom, 
turf, bushes, small branches of trees, stalks, &c. ; and when this 
heap is made, the articles being intermixed and pressed together, 
you are then to prepare near it a liquid of the following mate- 
rials : — 

100 parts of fecal matter and urine. 
25 *' '•' soot from the chimney. 
200 " " gypsum in powder. 
30 " " unslaked lime, 
10 " " unleeched wood ashes. 
A small quantity of salt. 
'• " '• " refined saltpetre. 

25 parts of the drainage of a manure heap, or of liquid 
fecal matter. 
These matters are to be mixed in a place by the heap, with 
water enough to make a quantity of liquor sufficient to water 
this heap, and, in, a few days, produce such a state of heat and 
fermentation as will reduce and wholly decompose it. The 
plaster or gypsum must be applied by slow degrees and in small 
quantities ; otherwise it would become hard. Near the heap, 
which should be placed on a piece of ground slightly inclined, 



MANURES. 533 

should be a basin or hole to receive the drainings of the heap, 
that they may be returned upon it. The washings or applica- 
tions of the liquid must be repeated, and holes occasionally made 
in the heap to receive it. In a favorable temperature, it is stated 
that a fermentation will commence in forty-eight hours, and that 
in twelve or fifteen days the whole matter will be so reduced as 
to be in a condition to apply to the land to be ploughed in with 
advantage. 

I am not able to give with great accuracy the various propor- 
tions of ingredients which are prescribed ; but this general 
statement will be sufficient for practical purposes, understand- 
ing only that there must be a sufficient quantity of the .'iquid 
thoroughly to impregnate or saturate the heap. Several other 
mixtures have been prescribed by different individuals, which 
produce the same effect ; the only question is that of cost. I do 
not deem it necessary further to refer to them, as they have been 
given in various forms to the public. Any cheap process, indeed, 
by which such crude materials can be decomposed, must be valu- 
able, especially when the articles themselves, of which the 
application is composed, are of an active and enriching nature. 
In general such prescriptions are looked upon as a species of 
quackery ; but Jauffret's method has been much approved in 
France. 

7. General Remarks on Manures. — I have heard from some 
farmers who claimed to be highly practical and intelligent, great 
distrust expressed of the value of liquid manure. They have 
applied to their lands, with comparatively small effect, the drain- 
ings of their dung-heap ; but, as a capital Swiss farmer observed 
to me, the drainage of a manure heap and the contents of a urine 
cistern are very ditferent matters. The former is, of course, in 
strength and efficacy, very inferior to the latter. 

The Flemish farmers, in the application of their manures, aim 
at two objects : the one to have their manure in a form in which 
it can be immediately taken up by the plant ; the other, to apply 
it at a time when it is directly needed. h\ a liquid form it is, 
of course, most accessible to the demands of the plant, and they 
apply it at the time of sowing ; and to some crops repeatedly 
afterwards, when they are in a growing state, and the effects of 
the first application are exhausted. They are, likewise, most 



534 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

liberal and indefatigable in the application of their solid manures, 
not limiting them to the surface, but mixing them with the 
whole soil by thorough and deep trenching. 



CXXXVIIi. — CROPS. 

I have already treated fully of many of the crops cultivated 
on the Continent ; but there remain some few others, in the cul- 
ture of which the Flemish distinguish themselves, to which 1 
shall refer. 

1. Colza is a plant cultivated largely in parts of France, but 
very extensively in Flanders, where it may be considered as a 
standard crop, the culture of which is carried to great perfection. 
It is a species of the cabbage family, and is cultivated for the oil 
which is expressed from the seed. It occupies the ground nearly 
a year, being sown in July or August, or transplanted in Sep- 
tember or October, and gathered the ensuing July. The product 
of a good crop in seed is estimated at thirty bushels. It is con- 
sidered a great exhauster of the soil, but it returns in its refuse 
much of what it receives. The stalks are often converted into 
manure, and are frequently used as fuel in cooking food for cattle, 
and in heating ovens. The land on which it flourishes best is a 
strong, rich soil, rather inclined to sand, yet argillaceous, mod- 
erately humid, and with a deep, fertile bed. It must be well 
drained, so as to allow of no standing water upon it, and it must 
be well manured. The best preparation is a green sward, or a 
clover ley broken up ; it often, however, follows rye or barley. 
It is important that the cultivation should be thoroughly clean. 
When sown on stubble, the stubble is first to be thoroughly 
harrowed or ploughed to the depth of two or three inches, and 
then, the weeds being cleared from the land and the maimre 
spread upon it, the whole is to be turned over by the plough to 
a good depth. 

The seed may be sown broadcast, or it may be sown in drills ; 
in the latter case it is more easily kept clean ; or the plants may 



CROPS. 535 

be grown in a nursery, and transplanted. In case of transplant- 
ing, the crop is usually much better, and the oil made from it of 
a superior quality ; but the labor and expense are considerably 
increased. When sown broadcast it is sown very thin, and 
cleared out so as to leave the plants about one foot apart. When 
sown in drills, the drills are more than a foot apart. When trans- 
planted, the plants should first be grown in an ample seed-bed, 
and set out at the distance of a foot from each other in double 
rows, the intervals between the double rows being eighteen 
inches. The land is ordinarily laid in stitches, on which four or 
six rows may be planted ; the land in the intervals dug out with 
a spade, and laid on the bed in the autumn, and in the spring 
this dirt levelled, the soil gathered up round the plants, and the 
whole kept thoroughly clean. 

In December, when the ground is frozen, it is sometimes 
watered with liquid manure from the urine cistern in which the 
rape cakes have been dissolved ; and this manuring is sometimes 
repeated in the spring, to the great advantage of the crop. This 
liquid manure is sometimes applied most beneficially immediately 
before sowing the crop. Wood ashes are likewise recommended 
as a manure ; and some farmers in Germany, when the plant 
presents four or six leaves, give it a dressing of plaster or gypsum. 
Marl on light soils is likewise extremely beneficial ; this is car- 
ried on to the land in a season favorable to this work, and then 
spread and distributed by a harrow. 

The seed is often sown broadcast : but it is very prejudicial 
to the crop to sow it too thickly. There are three different 
modes of transplanting the crop ; first, by a spade, when the 
workman makes the hole by plunging the spade into the ground 
to its full depth, when, pressing it from himself, children, who 
work with him, place two plants in the hole ; then, withdrawing 
the spade, the earth falls back upon the plants, and a pressure of 
the foot between them finishes the operation. Or a dibble or 
planter may be used, which makes two holes, into which the 
plants are placed, and the earth closed up by hand ; or a furrow 
may be struck with a plough, and the plants laid along in the 
furrow on the side of the furrow slice, and a second passing of 
the plough will throw the dirt directly on the roots of these 
plants, there being a workman to follow the plough to relieve 
plants, which hav^e been too much covered, or to cover those 



536 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

which have received too little dirt upon them, and to set up 
those which have fallen down. 

The plants, which are grown in a nursery bed, should have 
plenty of room ; and soot is recommended as an excellent manure 
for them, as well as for the field after they have been trans- 
planted. The plants, which are designed to be set out, arc some- 
times kept out of ground five or six days. The design of this 
is to check vegetatioji, so that they may not advance too rapidly 
before the winter, lest the severe frosts should injure them. It 
is not considered indis-pensable to manure the field upon which 
the crop is to be planted, if it is in a good state, or if the previous 
crop has been manured, though the crop will bear the usual 
relation to the richness of the land. 

The crop follows rye or wheat with advantage, or clover ; but 
in the case of rye or wheat, the stubble is to be thoroughly 
cleaned. The crop is to be hoed during its growth, and earth 
drawn round the plants. The plant has dangerous enemies in 
flies and bugs which attack it. Against the flies a dusting of 
quicklime is sometimes of use ; but the bugs are with difficulty 
dislodged, unless by a frost. The frosts, however, when they 
occur nightly, with warm days, are injurious to the plant; much 
less, however, when the frosts are followed by fogs. It is the 
habit of small farmers to pluck a portion of the leaves as food 
for their stock ; but this is attended by a diminution of the 
product. 

The harvesting of the crop is a business requiring much care. 
It must be gathered before it is completely ripe. In good weather 
it can be laid in small heaps and dried, and then shelled out on 
cloths upon the field ; or it may be stored in a barn after it has 
become sufficiently dry. In wet weather it may be heaj-ed up 
with layers of straw between the layers of colza, until a return 
of good weather. If suffered to become too dry, it is liable to 
lose much by shelling out. In cutting with a sickle, the work- 
man is cautioned against taking too many stalks in his hand at 
one time, as more likely, by so doing, to shake out the seed. 

I have already spoken of the value of the cakes as manure, 
though they have been much used of late for feeding stock, wliich 
they mfornied me at Courtray was a modern practice. The 
clean cultivation of colza, and the ample manuring, serve emi- 
nently to prepare the land for wheat. 



CROPS. 537 

2. Navette. — A smaller kind of colza, called navette, is cul- 
tivated where the land is too light for the larger kinds. It is 
cultivated for the same purpose, though the produce is seldom 
more than two thirds that of the other. Its produce is consid- 
ered more valuable, and sells for a higher price. It is sown 
broadcast, and requires the land to be well cultivated and 
manured. The navette, a rape of summer, is sown in the spring, 
and ripens its seed in September. This kind is much sown in 
parts of England, as feed for sheep ; but is seldom suffered to go 
to seed. It produces a healthy feed for sheep, and in good land 
a most productive vegetation. It sometimes, as I have observed 
in another place, affects badly the ears of sheep. The navette, 
a rape that is sown in autumn, has the advantage of bearing the 
frost well; and is much benefited by being harrowed in the 
spring. 

3. Poppy. — The poppy is largely cultivated in Flanders ; but 
I have no recollection of seeing it any where else, though it 
often appears as a weed in fields of grain, both wheat and oats. 
It is cultivated for its oil, which, when properly managed, is 
much esteemed. It is grown in small quantities in gardens for 
medical purposes as a narcotic ; in which case the heads, with a 
piece of the stalk, are cut off" before their maturity, and hung up 
to dry, and the opium extracted by the druggists. 

The poppy cultivated is of two kinds, the white and purple. 
The latter kind produces the larger quantity of oil ; the former, 
the best quality. There is another diiference ; the head of one 
kind being much more open than that of the other : and the 
former kind is almost exclusively cultivated in Flanders. The 
soil required for the poppy should be strong and mellow, and, as 
far as may be, protected from cold. It should be well cleaned 
from weeds. Though ordinarily sown broadcast, it would be 
preferable to sow the seed in drills, that it may be easily hoed. 
The plants should be left about a foot apart. It succeeds well to 
grain, and especially to hemp ; in which case the manuring is 
not required to be repeated. It is especially recommended to 
follow potatoes, where the ground has been well cultivated and 
kept clean. When it is intended that the poppy should succeed 
potatoes, the potatoes should be well manured. When it follows 
any of the grains, several loads of manure should be given to 



538 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

the land for the crop. This manure may be applied in the 
autumn or spring ; but in either case it must be ploughed or 
harrowed, and thoroughly mixed with the soil. There is danger 
of sowing the seed too thickly, and therefore it is advised to mix 
the seed before sowing with one portion of earth and two por- 
tions of sawdust. As soon as the plants appear, they are to be 
weeded and cleaned with great care ; and when a foot in height, 
to be hoed and slightly earthed up. 

The gathering of the seed of the poppy is to be done by 
hand, and at different times. As soon as the heads have acquired 
a degree of ripeness, they are to be carefully shaken over a 
basket or bag, so as to save the first loose seeds. This is after- 
wards to be repeated before the general harvest, when the whole 
is to be gathered by cutting off the heads. The shelling of the 
seed is afterwards done by hand ; for if done by a flail, the seed 
is cleaned with difficulty ; and the pieces of the stalk, which 
then become intermixed with the seed, give an offensive taste to 
the oil. The seed may be preserved a long time, but requires to 
be aired. The oil of the poppy is used both for food and light, 
and is considered a fifth more valuable than that of the colza. The 
cakes, remaining after the expression of the oil, are valuable for 
the fatting of swine ; and the stalks for fuel. The ashes, which 
remain after burning it, are of the best kind for manure. If the 
seed be pressed in a mill used for the colza or other oil, the 
greatest attention must be paid to cleaning it. The oil expressed 
in cold weather is much superior in quality to that obtained in 
warm weather, and the two must not be mixed. The great 
enemies of the poppy are the field-mice, which eat off the stalks 
while in a green state, and then destroy the heads. The birds 
likewise plunder a great deal of the seed. 

4. Cameline. — Another plant, called Camelinc,^ is culti- 
vated, when, for example, the colza fails ; as it ripens its seed in 
three months. The oil is not so valuable as the colza, as it has 
a bad smell. The plant is not extensively cultivated ; but it 
succeeds well in sandy and inferior land. The stalks of the 
plant are used for brooms, and some persons cultivate it for this 
object. 

* Myagrum Salivuvu 



CROPS. 539 

5. White Mustard. — The white mustard is sometimes cul- 
tivated both for the medicinal qualities of its seed and the oil 
expressed from it, which, though useful for many purposes, is 
not suitable for human food. The great objection to the culti- 
vation of this class of plants is, that it fills the ground with 
seed which germinates in succeeding years, and is with difficulty 
eradicated. It is sometimes subject to mildew or rust. It ripens 
in about fifteen or sixteen weeks. It is liable to be lodged ; but 
this does not ordinarily injure the seed. The plant is eaten as a 
salad ; and it is given to cattle as a change of food, when their 
appetites become capricious, and require to be quickened. 

6. Flax. — Flax is a great crop in many of the northern 
countries of Europe. It has been largely cultivated in Flanders, 
both for its fibre and oil. It has been for a long period an im- 
portant article of commerce, and probably in no country has its 
culture been carried to such perfection. The value of the croj), 
and the extraordinary diff"erence in the value of difterent quali- 
ties, amounting in some cases to full one hundred per cent., show 
the attention it demands, and how liberally it recompenses extra- 
ordinary care. 

Flax will grow on various soils, but is not indifierent to the 
character of the soil on which it is cultivated. It requires a rich, 
sandy loam, and one thoroughly manured. It is advisable, how- 
ever, with the exceptions to which I shall refer, that the soil 
should be enriched by previous manuring, rather than in the 
year of its being sown. The Flemish farmers make flax a 
crop in their regular rotation, occurring once in seven or eight 
years ; and the manuring of their previous crops has reference 
to the flax crop, which is to succeed. 

There are generally stated to be two kinds of flax. The 
ditference does not appear so great, however, but that they may 
occasionally run into each other. There is a kind which runs 
upon a single stalk, which is generally preferred, on account of 
its producing a finer fibre ; there is another, of a coarser kind, 
which branches out at the top, like a tree. They make a dis- 
tinction in Flanders, likewise, between the plants which bear a 
close, and those which produce an open or gaping capsule or 
seed-vessel, the latter being preferred. Experiments have been 
made in Germany with seed brought from South Italy. The 



540 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

seeds were beautiful, and brilliant, and large, yet the plant at- 
tained a comparatively small height. 

The Flemish farmers approve of changing their seed fre- 
quently. It is said that a crop from seed which has been twice 
sown in Belgium is inferior in quantity, owing to this circum- 
stance. I am an unbeliever in the deterioration of any plant on 
account of continuing the seed, where proper pains are taken to 
get, by selection and care, the best seed only from that plant. 
The seed preferred in Flanders is the seed brought from Riga, 
There are other places, however, from which seed is brought, 
the fibre produced from which is said to be finer than that from 
Riga. 

The seed to be chosen should be heavy and brilliant, of a gold 
color, or a clear brown, and especially clean. It may be tried in 
water ; and if much of it floats upon the surface, it is owing to 
the imperfection of the seed. It may be tried by throwing some 
little into the fire, to determine its oily properties ; and it may be 
laid upon a wet blanket or cloth, to determine its germinative 
powers. Seed which is black, or seed which has been much 
heated, is wholly unfit for sowing. 

The ground for flax cannot be prepared with too much care. 
A very fine crop of flax is often obtained on grass land, recently 
turned over, and this even without manure. The land in this 
case is carefully ploughed, rolled, lightly harrowed, and then 
sowed, and the seed lightly harrowed or brushed in. The crop 
which precedes flax is often oats or rye, but especially potatoes. 
The land, if in stubble or in potatoes, is carefully ploughed in 
the autumn, and then twice again in the spring ; and it requires 
to be most thoroughly cleaned, and kept clean of weeds. 

It is commonly sown thickly. Thick sowing tends to render 
the stalks fine and straight, without branching. One hundred 
and sixty pounds of seed is the usual allowance to an acre, 
which seems a large quantity. The land is sometimes manured 
in the year in which it is sown. In this case it is ploughed 
early, say in March, and thoroughly wrought, and then rolled 
smooth and hard. The land is then manured with thirty 
bushels per acre of peat ashes from Holland, or what is called 
Dutch ashes, and with a good dressing of liquid manure from 
the urine cistern, in which the cakes of colza have been dis- 
solved ; and this is mixed, likewise, with some manure from the 



CROPS. 541 

privies. This makes a strong dressing; the land is then har- 
rowed ; the seed sown, and lightly brushed in with a bush- 
harrow, as there is always danger of covering the seed too 
deeply. Horse manure must not be used for this crop. The 
effect of marl used as a manure for flax is to injure the color. 
Pigeons' dung, or what is called columbine, and which includes 
also the manure of the poultry yard, is pronounced an excellent 
manure. It is plain that these manures do not favor the produc- 
tion of weeds, as is commonly the case with barn-yard manure, 
and consequently is much to be preferred. In the neighborhood 
of Courtray, where much the best flax is grown, they use great 
quantities of the liquid manure, with the rape cakes freely inter- 
mixed. A thousand gallons of this liquid manure, with a thou- 
sand rape cakes dissolved in it, are sometimes applied to an acre. 
Besides other crops, flax is said to follow to great advantage a 
crop of hemp, which is always highly manured, and kept per- 
fectly clean. The dung of sheep is much valued for the flax 
crop ; and especially where sheep have been folded on the 
land. The general opinion is, that high manuring produces a 
coarse flax ; light manuring produces a flax of a fine fibre. It 
requires a deep culture, as the roots are supposed to penetrate to 
a depth equal to half the height : the flax root has been traced 
much farther than this. 

The best flax is produced at Courtray ; and it is said that the 
same pains or manuring will not produce nearly as good in other 
places : this seems to imply some unascertained quality in the 
soil, peculiarly favorable to its growth. 

The time of sowing flax must be somewhat regulated by the 
climate or position of the place. It is sown in March, and some- 
times as late as May. The earlier sowing is advised, though in 
the countries of a high northern latitude the rapidity of vegeta- 
tion compensates to a degree for the shortness of the season. 
Ordinarily in fifteen days after the sowing of the seed the field 
will require to be weeded. This cannot be too thoroughly per- 
formed, and is done by women and children, on their knees, 
working against the wind, that it may raise the plants which 
have been pressed down. 

Flax is often liable to be lodged, especially if the growth be 
rapid. Great pains are sometimes taken to prevent this, by 
placing stakes in line in different parts of the field, and laying 
VOL. II. 46 



542 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

poles or bars along upon them, which serve to keep the plant 
from falling over. 

If flax of an extraordinary fineness is required, it is pulled 
before the perfect ripening of the seed ; the superior fineness of 
the fibre is considered as a compensation for the loss of the seed. 
But if otherwise, an early is preferred to a late gathering ; as the 
longer it is left to stand, the coarser and harder becomes the fibre. 
The seed is generally taken off by a comb with iron teeth, made 
for the purpose, as soon as the flax is harvested ; or the whole is 
stowed away in a barn, to be taken off at pleasure. When the 
flax is stowed away in a barn, and the seed not taken off until 
the succeeding winter or spring, it acquires a ripeness which 
gives it a superior value. After the seed is taken off, the flax is 
set up in the field in a sort of windrow, the roots upon the 
ground, and the tops inclined to each other, until it is sufiiciently 
dried to be placed away in a barn, or stacked with the roots out, 
or steeped, preparatory to being dressed for the market. The 
bright and beautiful silvery color of the flax is of great impor- 
tance, and so is the fineness of the fibre ; and all pains are 
directed to secure these objects. 

There are several modes of steeping, or what is termed rotting 
the flax, that is, destroying the bark of the plant so as to clean 
the fibre. It is sometimes dew-rotted, that is, left upon the 
grass, being occasionally turned ; it is sometimes rotted in stag- 
nant water ; it is sometimes rotted in running water. In Flan- 
ders there are persons who are employed as regular sleepers of 
flax ; and when the farmer sells his crop of flax before it is dressed 
to the merchant or manufacturer, these persons dress and prepare 
it for the market. The inhabitants of Courtray steep their flax 
in the water of the River Lys, drawing off to the side in an arti- 
ficial basin, of sufficient depth and width, water sufficient for 
their purpose. The flax is set upright, with the roots down- 
wards, in a sort of hurdle or basket, and it is with great pains 
retained in its upright position, as being necessary to prevent its 
becoming discolored. They are careful to keep the roots at 
least a foot from the ground, or bottom of the pool. In many 
cases, instead of water being drawn from the river into a pool or 
basin, the flax is placed upright in hurdles to prevent its floating 
away, directly in the running stream, with planks and weights 
in all cases to keep it under the water, as the tops are longer in 



CROPS. 543 

becoming macerated than the bottoms ; and where they are not 
sufficiently rotted, a considerable loss is experienced. In this 
case, of course, fresh water is continually supplied to the flax ; 
and the process is completed sooner or later, according to the 
temperature of the weather. Great skill is required to determine 
the precise time when the process is finished, and the flax is to be 
removed from the water, as a few hours are said in such case to 
make an important difference in the color of the flax. This must 
be matter of experience 'rather than of written instruction. In 
other cases, a pool or cistern of water is formed in a field, in 
which the flax is immersed, fixed upright, and the bottoms of 
the plants not touching the bottom of the cistern ; and so arranged, 
that this water can be drawn off" and replenished with clean 
water. It is said that in this way the cleaned flax has more 
weight than in any other, amounting, it is said, over some methods 
employed, to ten per cent. This method was at one time con- 
sidered a valuable discovery in Flanders. It is clearly important 
in all cases that the water should have no foreign substance in 
it, which would be likely to give a coloring to the flax. I have 
already mentioned the value of the water in which flax has been 
steeped as a manure to land, having seen the most beneficial 
effects from it. I am informed that a method has been adopted 
for getting the bark off" the flax by steaming the plant, in which 
case the whole is accomplished in seventy hours, but I am not 
sufficiently informed to speak of it with confidence. The flax 
being thus rotted, the remaining operations through which it 
passes are well understood. The operations of heckling and 
swingling flax, which were formerly performed wholly by hand, 
are now performed by machinery moved either by steam or 
water ; but it does not enter into my plan to describe these 
machines. 

The seed of flax is of great importance in Flanders for the 
manufacture of oil. About seven bushels of seed are rated as the 
ordinary yield from an acre of land. This seems a very small 
product. The seed, when first taken from the stalks, is carefully 
dried and kept in sacks, until it is beyond the danger of being 
heated. The cakes from the pressed flax seed are highly valued 
for the Ititting of cattle ; and the seed itself, being converted into 
jelly, is capable of being used in this way to great advantage. 
Indeed, as far as my own experience goes, I know no single 
article superior to it for cattle or for sheep. 



544 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

In Flanders they sometimes sow clover or carrots among the 
flax, from which they get a crop after that is removed. This 
should not be done in any event until after the first weeding of 
the flax. The practice is generally approved. That it is to a 
degree prejudicial to the flax crop, there can be little doubt ; but 
whether the profits of the clover or the carrots would more than 
compensate the lessening of the crop of flax, is a matter upon 
which there exists a diversity of judgment, and, in diflerent cases, 
undoubtedly a diversity of results. 

7. Hemp. — The cultivation of hemp prevails to a considerable 
extent in Flanders, and is expensive in the preparation of the 
land, and the quantity of manure required. The value of the 
crop is considerable ; the land, being well cultivated and highly 
manured, is in a condition for two or three successive crops of 
grain. 

The soil required for hemp is a strong, rich, moist loam, a 
deep alluvion ; and it needs to be deeply cultivated and liberally 
manured. It is not unusual to plough it eight to ten inches 
deep, or to trench it with a spade a foot deep or more ; and it 
should be finely divided and tilled. It is ploughed in the au- 
tumn, and then again twice in the spring ; but it must not be 
wrought when it is wet, which indeed may be laid down as a 
universal rule. A sandy clay loam may be considered as best 
adapted to this culture. It likes a warm exposure and low 
ground. It succeeds well after clover or potatoes ; and in some 
places it comes as often on the same ground as every second or 
third year. 

The manure which best suits hemp is horse or sheep manure. 
If the manure is coarse and strawy, it is ploughed in, and often 
by the first ploughing in the autumn ; but if well rotted, it is 
applied in the spring, and near or at the time of sowing. It 
requires a warm manure ; though the manure of cows, when 
about a third part is added of night-soil, or manure from the 
urine cistern, is an excellent application. The manure of 
pigeons and poultry, ashes, and the cleaning of streets, is much 
valued. To give a rapid growth to the plant, the manure must 
be in a condition, that is, well rotted or short, to be immediately 
taken up by the plant ; and with respect to hemp, there is little 
danger from the seeds of weeds in the manure, as the luxuriant 
growth of the hemp will overpower them. 



CROPS. 545 

The seed is sown ordinarily about the middle or within the 
last fortnight of May, and sometimes not until June. The seed 
requires to be watched against the birds ; for even after it has 
made its appearance above ground, they will pull up the plants 
and take the seed. The plants are to be thinned out to a dis- 
tance of three or four inches ; but if the land be very rich, to a 
greater, or double the distance. If it is desired to grow a fine 
hemp for twine, the sowing should be thick; if for large ropes 
and cables, it may be sown more sparingly. 

The gathering of the hemp is made ordinarily at two ditferent 
times. There will be found in the field what are called the 
male and the female plants. Both in Belgium and in France, 
by a misnomer, the plant bearing the seed is called the male 
plant, and the plant bearing the flowers for the impregnation of 
the flowers upon the seed-bearing plant is called the male hemp. 
It is of no great importance by what term they are designated, 
provided the difference is understood. The plants which do not 
bear seed are to be pulled from the field some weeks before the 
seed-bearing plants ; they at that time will give a fine fibre, but 
if left until the ripening of the seed, they become of little or no 
value. The time for pulling them is when the flowers of the 
non-seed-bearing plants have been long enough unfolded to shed 
their pollen upon the male plants, and the top of the stalk be- 
comes of a yellow color, and the part towards the root is bleached. 
The ripeness of the seed-bearing plants is determined by the 
maturity of the seed, and the fading color of the stem. The 
hemp, being pulled, is tied in small bundles ; and, after being 
sufficiently dried by being set up in the sun, the seed is beaten 
or combed oft*, and the plant is prepared for steeping or rotting. 
The hemp pulled first requires not more than eight or ten days 
for rotting ; the last pulled, which is drawn, of course, when the 
weather has become colder, is sometimes kept in the water two 
months ; and it is well for it to remain until the water freezes. 
The mode of steeping does not differ much from that of flax, 
excepting that it is not deemed necessary to set it upright in the 
water, and that it is done in a pool or basin instead of the river. 
The color of the fibre of hemp is obviously of little importance 
compared with that of flax, though some of the finest of hemp 
is sometimes mixed with flax for the making of coarse linens. 

Hemp, too, like flax, is sometimes dew-rotted upon the ground^ 
46* 



546 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

where it is thinly spread out, and occasionally turned. That 
which is dew-rotted has a superior whiteness and fineness of 
fibre to tliat which is steeped, but is not so durable. This dew- 
rotted hemp is therefore preferred for twine, and the other kind 
for cables and strong cordage. The early-pulled hemp should not 
be rotted upon the grass, but upon stubble ; and it is believed by 
some farmers, that where it is spread upon a rye stubble to be 
dew-rotted, it acquires a whiteness above that by any other pro- 
cess. The seed-bearing hemp, when dew-rotted upon grass, must 
be spread so thinly that one stalk should scarcely touch another. 

The farmers of one of the best cultivated districts in Flanders, 
the Pays de Waes, are averse to planting hemp, because of the 
great quantity of manure which it requires : but, with the addi- 
tion of a moderate manuring, they get excellent wheat after it, 
and sometimes carrots are sown after hemp, and a superb crop 
of flax is taken from the same ground after the carrots. Two 
great advantages are said to come from the cultivation of hemp ; 
the weeds are stifled, and the leaves, which fall from the stalks, 
serve to enrich the land. 

The quantity of seed sown to an acre is about half a bushel ; 
and it is advisable to sow it in narrow beds, that when the non- 
seed-bearing stalks are pulled, the seed-bearing stalks may not be 
interfered with. Sometimes a crop of rye or wheat is sown 
among the hemp plants, while standing, and the extraction of 
the non-seed-bearing plant serves to cover it. This saves a 
ploughing. 

7\t the harvest, the plant is usually drawn by the roots, though 
sometimes cut with a sickle or a knife, and laid on the ground 
to be dried. The hemp is said to be of a superior quality if 
thoroughly dried before it is put in the steep. The ends of the 
seed-bearing hemp are sometimes beaten over the edges of the 
head of an open barrel, as the seed which comes off" in this way 
most easily is, of course, the most ripe, and the best for sowing. 
The seed which first comes off" in this case is taken for this 
purpose. 

The roots of the hemp before dew-rotting are cut off" with a 
hatchet, and used for fuel. In pulling hemp, it is important so 
far to select the stalks as to bring together those which are of 
the same length, to be tied up in the same bundle. The hemp, 
after being steeped, must be thoroughly dried ; and this is done, 



CROPS, 547 

in some parts of Germany, by a kiln of simple construction for 
that purpose, Avhich saves much time. The hemp, after being 
dried, is broken by a machine formed by one heavy stone rolling 
over another, which breaks the bark ; and sometimes by mallets, 
and then the bark is picked off by the hand — a slow process, 
and prejudicial to the health of the laborers from the dust which 
fills the room where this is done. 

The produce of an acre of hemp is ordinarily about 350 lbs., 
and of the seed from thirty to thirty-five bushels. 

There are several other crops cultivated extensively in Flan- 
ders ; but my object is not so much to give a specific and de- 
tailed account of the mode of cultivation of these crops as the 
general features of the cultivation. Tobacco and hops are 
grown to a considerable extent ; and likewise several plants 
valuable for their coloring or dyeing properties, such as Woad or 
Pastel, Weld, and Madder. 

8. Tobacco. — Tobacco is cultivated as an article of large 
consumption and of commerce. It is quite remarkable that a 
plant so odious and offensive as this, in no respect conducive to 
health, and in most cases positively injurious, and so nauseous 
and repugnant to an unaccustomed taste until habit has over- 
come this repugnance, should have acquired such a hold, that it 
has become, with a large portion of mankind, almost a necessary 
of life. There is no hope of a reformation in this respect, and 
the use is constantly extending itself. 

There are two kinds of tobacco cultivated in Flanders — that 
of Virginia and that of Turkey : the former is esteemed greatly 
superior to the latter. 

It has its place in the rotation of many farmers, occurring 
sometimes once in four, and sometimes twice in seven years. It 
will grow well upon most soils, excepting a heavy clay, or a dry 
sand, or a wet soil ; but it requires laborious cultivation and 
abundant manuring. The crop is stated to be 4000 lbs. ; but 
this much exceeds the amount grown to an acre under the best 
cultivation which I have known in the United States ; 2000 lbs. 
would, I think, be considered there a large crop, though I have 
known an average crop of 2700 lbs. grown on several acres under 
circumstances peculiarly favorable. 

The soil is ploughed, and the manure ploughed in, in the 



548 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



autumn, and again ploughed and labored in the spring. The 
manures used are cow and pigs' manure, and likewise the manure 
of sheep, which is deemed peculiarly favorable. Malt-dust from 
the breweries is much valued; and very large dressings of rape 
cake, sometimes in powder and sometimes dissolved in the urine 
cistern, are extensively used. If fecal matter is mixed with this, 
it is essentially improved for this object. The manure of horses, 
even the urine of horses, is objectionable, as giving a bad taste 
to the tobacco. What worse taste can be given to it than its 
ordinary taste, it would be difficult to imagine. 

The seed is first sown in a nursery-bed, in a warm and shel- 
tered exposure, in March ; the nursery-bed should be well- 
wrought and manured ; and, in case of danger of frost, the young 
plants require some protection either of bushes or of straw. The 
transplanting is usually made with a dibble in June, when the 
young plants have acquired a growth of six leaves. They are 
set out in rows two feet apart, and in the row the plants are 
fourteen inches apart. In about fourteen days the plants require 
to be hoed, and the plantation to be kept clean of weeds. When 
the plants have acquired a height of ten or twelve leaves, they 
are then, as it is sometimes termed, stopped, — that is, the top- 
shoot is pinched off, so as to prevent its rising any higher; and 
all side shoots are broken off, so as to leave only one stalk. In 
this way the sap of the plant is thrown wholly into the leaves. 
The tobacco plant is subject to be injured by frosts, especially 
in low grounds ; and is likewise liable to rust, under which the 
leaves perish and fall to the ground. This depending, as is sup- 
posed, upon a bad exposure or a bad condition of the soil, as yet 
unascertained, no remedy has been discovered. I have not been 
able to learn that the tobacco worm, so well known in the 
United States, and so destructive unless means are taken to 
remove it, is known in Europe. This is a large green caterpillar, 
found under the leaves ; and sometimes a large drove of turkeys 
is sent into the plantation, who pick them oft' and regale them- 
selves upon them. This is the nearest approach within my 
knowledge to the use of this weed among the inferior animals ; 
the worms eat the tobacco ; the turkeys eat the worms. 

When the leaves begin to turn yellow, the harvest begins ; 
they are picked off by hand close to the stalk, and, after a little 
exposure to the sun, are then tied up in bands and hung up under 



CROPS. 549 

cover for perfect drying. When taken off they are sorted into 
three qualities — the first, into the large leaves ; the second, com- 
posed of the leaves next in size ; and the last, of the leaves which 
have grown nearest the ground. 

9. Hops. — I know of nothing peculiar in the culture and 
management of hops in Flanders, excepting the production of 
1600 lbs. of dried hops to an acre, which is a very large yield. 
They are careful not to have the plantations of too large an 
extent, as it would prevent a free circulation of air ; and 
they manure the ground most liberally with liquid manures. 
The hops are planted in hills six feet apart each way, and four 
plants to each hill. A trench is dug round the hill, which is 
filled with decomposed manure, and in some small measure 
earthed up. The usual operations of trimming and pohng them 
follow. As no crop of hops is taken the first year, the intervals 
are occupied by cabbages and other plants. 

A method has been recently invented and patented in England 
for drying or curing hops, by which it is stated that at least fifty 
per cent, of the fuel ordinarily used will be saved, and a much 
larger amount of the essential oil of the hops, the lupulin, will 
be retained in them. The furnace or kiln for drying them is of 
a peculiar construction ; and the air used for drying them is 
made to pass over sulphuric acid or quicklime, by which it is 
divested of its watery properties, and comes in upon the hops in 
a dry and decomposed state. The apparatus is deemed simple 
enough, and not extraordinarily expensive. The hops dried in 
this way have, it is stated, brought twenty-five per cent, more 
in the market than those cured by other methods. I have seen 
the plans for constructing the apparatus, but further experiments 
may bo desired to determine its advantages. It is said to be 
applicable to other agricultural purposes, such as malting, and 
even the drying of hay, so as to expedite the process, and at the 
same time retam the rich juices of the herbage. It is difficult to 
conceive that it should be useful in this way upon any large 
scale. Most patent inventions, however, like patent medicines, 
are catholicons. 

There are cultivated in Flanders, in France, and in Italy, 
several plants for the purpose of dyeing or coloring, such as woad, 
which is used for a blue dye, weld for yellow, and madder for 



550 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE, 

red. I was once asked, what bearing had the color of the 
trousers of a soldier of the French army, which are red, upon 
agriculture. The answer is obvious ; so infinitely diversified and 
innumerable are the circumstances which affect the various 
relations and interests of social life. 

10. Madder.* — Madder is one of the most important of all 
the plants used in dyeing, and is cultivated at great expense. It 
is two years, and sometimes three, before the crop is gathered. 
There are two kinds cultivated — the one with a quadrangular, 
the other with an hexagonal stem. The former is the most 
productive ; the latter produces madder of the best quality. 

The soil required for its production should be deep and rich ; 
a clayey soil will produce good madder, but its working is diffi- 
cult ; a soil, therefore, in which sand enough prevails with the 
clay to render it friable, is that which is to be chosen. It must 
be deeply cultivated, as the roots, which constitute the value of 
the crop, run down very far. A plough will scarcely go deep 
enough, and the land should be trenched with a spade to the 
depth of at least three feet. Manure should be ploughed in and 
dug in until the whole bed becomes most thoroughly enriched. 
It is advised to plough in the solid manure in the autumn, and 
in the spring to apply liquid manure, urine and fecal matter 
intermixed. Cow manure and stable manure are also applied 
with advantage ; and the land should especially be rich from 
former cultivation, and from having been thoroughly cleaned of 
weeds. The manure should not only pervade the surface, but 
be buried deeply, that the roots may not want for nourishment 
as they go down. 

Madder should be sowed in a nursery-bed in a garden, and the 
seed of the last year should be used, as seed of more than a year 
old germinates at a very late period after planting. It is well to 
lay the ground in beds three feet wide, to receive two rows of 
plants ; or in five feet beds, to receive four rows of plants. The 
plants are to be set in line, a foot apart, and the rows at an equal 
distance. The intervals between the beds are to be shovelled 
out, and the ground kept loose by a spade until the second year, 
when the roots of the plants extend into the intervals, in which 

* Rubia Tindorum Saliva. 



CROPS. 551 

case they must not be disturbed ; they must then be kept clean, 
but not dug. Holes may be made for setting the plants, either 
with a hoe or a spade ; they must be taken from the nursery- 
bed, and immediately set out, and not allowed to get dry or 
withered in the air ; they may be dipped in water when trans- 
planted, and great care must be taken to prevent their being 
injured, and to place them fairly in the ground, bringing the 
earth and pressing it carefully down around them. Liquid 
manure may be applied with great advantage in the intervals 
between the beds. After the planting, it is well to water the 
plants ; and they are to be kept clean, and the intervals kept 
loose by a narrow hoe or spade : the sprouts thrown out at the 
sides of the main stem may be bent down and covered with 
earth, so as to force the growth of the root. In the autumn the 
plants should have a slight covering of strawy manure. 

The madder which is not taken up until the third year pro- 
duces much more, and of a better quality, than that which is 
gathered the second year ; but the increased expense and rent of 
the land are seldom compensated by the increased product. 

The harvesting is a work of much labor. The roots, which, 
in a well-prepared soil, extend to a great depth, must be taken up 
with much care, and without injury. Sometimes a plough is 
passed along the line, and then the work is finished by the spade, 
but generally it is wholly done by the spade ; the intervals 
between the beds being dug out to the depth of two feet, and 
the plants carefully displaced and taken out by means of forks 
or narrow hoes. The plants lie upon the ground throe or four 
days, in small heaps, in order to become dry, and in case of rain 
are covered with straw. They are then carefully housed, and 
afterwards dried in a kiln for the market. The excellent condi- 
tion in which, under such cultivation, the land is left for other 
crops, is a considerable indemnity for the expense and trouble 
bestowed upon the crop of madder. The rich polders, or re- 
deemed meadows, both in Holland and Flanders, are favorite 
spots for the cultivation of this crop. 

11. WoAD.* — This plant grows wild in various places, but is 
cultivated for its blue dye. Where indigo is not attainable, it 

* Jsaiis Tindoria. 



552 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

takes its place ; and where indigo is attainable, it is found 
advantageous to mix a portion of woad with indigo. The use 
of indigo, however, much interferes with the cultivation of 
woad. It is sown both in the autumn and spring. That which 
is sown in the autumn has the advantage of giving a larger crop 
of leaves, and of sooner getting out of the way of insects. The 
leaves constitute the value of the crop, and these are gathered 
sometimes thrice in a season, the first gathering being much the 
best. It requires a rich soil ; and the particular kind of soil is 
not so important as that it should be deep, to admit of the free 
descent of the tap-root of the plant. Rich alluvions, which 
have been well drained, are particularly favorable to it. The 
land should be manured as well as for wheat ; and, above all, it 
should be kept thoroughly clean. It succeeds well after grain or 
after potatoes. It may be sown in drills, or it may be grown in 
a nursery, and transplanted. The plants require to be from a 
foot to a foot and a half apart. The leaves are gathered when 
they begin to droop, and turn slightly yellow ; they must be kept 
free from dirt, and when laid away must be guarded against heat 
or fermentation. They are sometimes washed, to get rid of any 
dirt which may adhere to them ; and a dry time must be taken 
for gathering. 

After being gathered, they are crushed in a mill, resembling a 
tenner's bark-mill ; they are then made into heaps, where they 
undergo a fermentation, great pains being taken to close any 
cracks which may appear in the crust of the heap : after this 
they are rolled into balls, twice as large as a man's fist, and are 
then pressed into the form of bricks ; and thus are ready for the 
market. The profits of such cultivation must depend upon the 
state of trade and the price of indigo. I found this plant culti- 
vated extensively in one part of Lincolnshire, where a large mill 
had been recently erected for its preparation. The best woad is 
grown in the south of France, where it is largely cultivated. 

12. Weld.* — The weld is cultivated for its yellow color. It 
is a plant which grows wild in many places, and the smaller kind 
is known in the gardens as mignonette. It requires a soil dry, 
calcareous, and well cultivated. It will grow well upon a sandy 

* Reseda lufeola. 



CROPS. 653 

day loam. Upon a very rich soil the stems will be proportion- 
ally strong and large, bat the coloring matter not so good ; upon 
a poor soil it will not pay the expenses of cultivation; a soil of 
medium fertility is to be preferred. It should be sown very 
early in the spring, and the ground should be well cultivated in 
the previous autumn. It does not require manure when sown 
upon a soil previously well cultivated and clean. The seed must 
be covered as lightly as possible, and it is best sowed in line. 
It will require to be carefully weeded ; and when the leaves 
begin to turn yellow, it should be gathered. In a sandy soil it 
may be pulled with the roots ; in a clay soil, where the dirt 
would adhere to the roots, it should be reaped close to the ground 
with a sickle. The plants which are designed for seed should 
be allow-ed to remain until the seed is perfectly matured. Fresh 
seed is greatly preferred to seed more than one year old, which 
often fails to come up; and when sown, on account of the small- 
ness of the seed, it is recommended to mix it with some fine 
sand. The plants, when gathered, are to be dried in the sun, and 
then tied up in small bundles, so overlaying them, that the tops 
of the plants shall be turned in upon each other, and the roots 
project at each end of the sheaf. They must then be put away 
in an airy and dry place, and are ready for sale. It may be cul- 
tivated on the same land once in eight years. 

13. Carrots. — I must not quit the crops common in Flan- 
ders, without referring to the culture of the white carrot, which 
is vastly more productive than other sorts. This is sometimes 
sown among rye or wheat, or colza or flax, after the last clean- 
ing, and a small crop is obtained in this way, but often at the 
expense of the crop among which it is sown. When sown as a 
separate crop, they speak of twenty tons to an acre, or eight 
hundred bushels. It requires a comparatively light and dry 
soil ; it bears high manuring and deep cultivation ; and is con- 
sidered a profitable crop. 

I shall take the liberty of repeating here what I have said in 
another place. The land, after being fully prepared by manur- 
ing and fine tilth, should remain until the first crop of weeds 
comes up, and should be lightly ploughed, in order to destroy 
these. Furrows should then be made upon the field, into which 
the manure should be placed, and then a back furrow slice 
VOL. II. 47 



554 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

turned each way upon this open furrow, so as to form a ridge 
directly over the manure. These ridges should be twenty or 
twenty-seven inches apart. On the top of these ridges, which 
should be smoothed off carefully, the carrot seed should be 
sown in double rows ten inches apart, and as straightly as possi- 
ble. The carrot seed should be sprouted in wet sand, before 
sowing, and should early be weeded. The land may then be 
ploughed between the rows, and kept clean with a hoe. They 
must be thinned out in the row to about six inches asunder. 
When ready to be taken up, by running a plough directly by the 
side of the row of carrots, they are gathered with little trouble. 
I have now gone through the principal crops grown in Con- 
tinental husbandry, and though not undertaking to give a fuli 
detail of the culture, yet I have given all the peculiarities which 
distinguish any mode of culture, and those general rules and 
principles which are universally applicable. 



CXXXIX.— IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY. 

In Paris at the Conservatory of Arts and Trades, at Brussels, 
at Utrecht, I found extensive collections of agricultural imple- 
ments and models of agricultural tools and machinery. These 
embraced many of the most improved implements to be found in 
England or the United States. It may excite a smile of surprise 
with an Englishman, that I speak of the United States in this 
connection. But I have seen nothing on the Continent or in 
Great Britain equal to the collections of agricultural implements 
which are to be found, for example, in Boston, United States. 
The English implements are usually clumsy, heavy, and inordi- 
nately expensive. In treating of British Husbandry, I have given 
an account of some of the best of them. They at least answer 
the purposes of the ingenious mechanics, who understand very 
well when they have got their pail under a cow with a full udder, 
and how in the most agreeable manner to abstract the gold from 
the pockets of enthusiastic agricultural amateurs. Like the 
Flemish cows, they are carefully fed, not to say flattered, while 



IMPLEMENTS OF HUSBANDRY. 



555 



being milked ; and finding tools and implements for every opera- 
tion, and adapted to all possible shades of difference in the manner 
of performing it, imagine they have only to purchase the tool to 
have the operation accomplished. In general they are compelled 
to learn that it is not so much the tool, as the man who holds it, 
upon which they are to rely for the proper execution of the work. 
Of this the Flemings are a striking example ; for it is impossible 
to find agricultural operations better executed, and with fewer 
and more simple implements. 

Two ploughs are much celebrated in Flanders, one called the 
Walloon plough, with wheels to the beam, of which I subjoin a 
sketch, and which is much used for ploughing deep in heavy 
lands. It is used with two, three, or four horses, according to 
the nature of the soil, or the depth to which it is desired to go. 




The other is of a lighter description, and is much esteemed as 
the Dutch plough. It is introduced into France, and there most 
highly approved. For light lands it is used with one horse, but 
ordinarily with two. What I have sometimes seen called the 
Dutch plough has had the mould-board so curved, or rather 
almost concave, as to offer great resistance ; and rather to press 
the dirt as if with the hollow of the hand, than to turn it over. 
The common Flemish plough is undoubtedly an excellent imple- 
ment. It has a shoe or regulator attached to the beam in front, 
by which the depth of the farrow is regulated. A plate of it is 
given at the top of the next page. The Flemings value it not 
only for raising and inverting the land, but for pulverizing it at 
the same time. 

In the harrows and rollers used in Flanders I saw nothing 
peculiar. They have bush harrows, and harrows with teeth of 
iron and of wood. 



>56 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE 




The instrument, which is deemed peculiarly Flemish, is the 
mouldehart, of which I annex a plate. It is designed for the 
speedy removal of earth, when it is not required to transport it 
to a great distance. The horses or oxen are attached to this 
implement, which immediately dips itself full of dirt, and when 
full, the handle is then pressed down, that it may slide easily 
over the ground. When it reaches the place of deposit, the 
handle is raised, and it empties itself; and the string, which 
is constantly held by the workman Avho guides it, is designed to 
pull it back after it is emptied. It is thus prepared to take up 
another load. It is a most useful instrument, and effects a great 
deal of work with a small expense of labor in a short time. It 
has been used many years in the United States, and is there 
called an ox-shovel. 




The plough which I saw frequently used in Italy was without 
a mould-board, and its share resembled the bowl of an inverted 
teaspoon, only more flat. It simply stirred the groimd, but did 
not invert it. 

The spade is an instrument much used among the small 
farmers of Flanders ; and in the best cultivated districts, such as 
the Pays de Waes, they deem it necessary, once in five or six 



SPADE HUSBANDRY. 557 

years, to trench their land completely, to the depth of fifteen or 
seventeen inches, with the spade. 

I saw nothing in the carts, wagons, or vehicles in use on the 
Continent in any way to recommend them either to English or 
American farmers. Nothing, however, can be more complete 
than the fitting out of a Flemish or Dutch farmer's team. The 
equipments in France and Italy are in general wretched in the 
extreme. In Italy and in Switzerland, oxen and cows are prin- 
cipally used for draught. In Italy the breed of cattle is extremely 
beautiful in appearance. The oxen there are often brought out 
upon the roads to assist in dragging the coaches up their steep 
hills. They ordinarily draw by the horns or forehead ; but 
where a yoke is used over the neck, I have found a basket of 
stones hung at the centre to keep it down, that it might not 
impede the breathing of the cattle. Instead of bows, there were 
ropes round the necks of the cattle. 

The Dutch collar for draught horses has been the subject of 
much improvement, and the horses used in the Belgian artillery are 
said to have derived an immense advantage from its improved 
character. The first object has been to avoid, as much as possi- 
ble, a horizontal draught ; and, therefore, the point of attaching 
the chain or trace is placed high on the collar, so that it may not 
affect the breathing of the animal ; the second, to avoid galling 
the neck of the horse ; and for this reason the collars are made 
open, to buckle at the top, by which means they can be better 
adjusted to the neck of the animal. Great stress, and I believe 
very justly, is laid upon having the collars made so as to open at 
one end at pleasure. 



CXL. — SPADE HUSBANDRY. 

An implement which has accomplished an immense amount 
in some parts of continental Europe, is the spade ; and when 
we reflect upon the actual amount of labor effected by this sim- 
ple tool, managed by the human hand alone, the elevations 
which have been levelled, the canals which have been dug, and 
the mighty embankments which have been raised, wc are filled 
with astonishment at the grpat eflects which are brought about 
47* 



558 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

by the most simple means, and at the vast results of combined 
and persevering labor. 

A great amount of land is cultivated by the spade in Belgium, 
Holland, France, and Germany. Indeed, vast extents of land, 
especially in the vine-growing districts, on the steep acclivities 
and on the summits of high hills which are cultivated, are 
entirely inaccessible to horses or cattle. The ground is tilled by 
the spade ; the manure is carried up, and the produce is brought 
down on the backs of men or women. It is stated in a statisti- 
cal work, now in the course of publication in France, that not 
less than forty millions of acres in that country are cultivated by 
the spade. This strikes me as an over-statement ; yet the 
amount is, doubtless, very considerable. In Flanders the culti- 
vation is mixed, with the spade and the plough ; the land for 
grain crops is wrought with the plough and laid in beds or 
stitches, and the intervals are dug out with the spade, and the 
seed sown on the beds is covered with the dirt thrown out of 
these intervals. This is all done with the greatest care, and this 
is the occasion of the extreme neatness and exactness which 
appear in their cultivation. 

In the case of very small farms of a few acres, all the work is 
executed by the spade or the hoe. It may interest my readers 
to see the calculation made by the late Rev. Mr. Rham, a gentle- 
man highly esteemed for his agricultural knowledge, and his 
zeal in agricultural improvements, as to the amount of produce 
which may be obtained "from fifteen Ghent acres of light land 
and moderate fertility, which should be cultivated by the spade, 
with the help of a horse and cart. They will maintain four milch 
cows, and a heifer, a horse, two or three hogs, and a couple of 
young pigs; — sending to market, or consuming in the family, the 
following produce, deducting seed : — 

90 bushels of wheat. 
90 " '• rye. 
30 " " buckwheat. 

100 " " oats, leaving twenty bushels for the horse. 
An acre of flax. 
60 bushels of rape seed. 
8 cwt. of butter, from four cows. 
2 fat hogs. 
A heifer and two calves, sold annually." 



SPADE IIUSBANDRV. 559 

This is an extraordinary amount, and yet I have no doubt it 
may be realized. 

I am not about to enter into a comparison of spade husbandry 
with tfiat carried on by the plough and the help of brute labor ; 
but there are many cases in which, owing to the superabun- 
dance, and consequent cheapness of human labor, it may present 
a fortunate alternative. It is stated to require the labor of a 
man sixteen days to dig an acre, and thirty-two days to trench 
it, which would be going two spits deep. Labor in Flanders is 
about ten pence, or twenty cents a day, without feed, which 
would render it much less expensive than ploughing. 

In cultivating land with brute labor, it is to be remembered 
that on few small farms can a team be kept constantly at labor; 
but the expense of the keep goes on whether the team labors or 
not. The cultivation by a spade is much more thorough than 
by a plough ; much less seed is required, and much better crops 
are produced, A bushel and a quarter of wheat to an acre is 
ample, because every seed is carefully covered, and thus secured 
from the birds, and buried only at such a depth that it rises 
easily. The cultivation is much cleaner from weeds, and the 
manure is more thoroughly intermixed with the soil. The land 
is made friable, and the deep cultivation gives the roots of the 
plant ample opportunity to expand themselves. The beneficial 
effects of a good trenching will continue for five or six years. 
How far it may be expedient to adopt it on any large scale, must 
depend on a variety of obvious circumstances, which in dificrent 
situations must greatly vary. The expense of keeping such 
teams of horses as are kept in England, and in many parts of the 
Continent, — I speak particularly as to their consumption of food, 
— to say nothing of their equipments and deterioration in value, 
is enormous. It seems the great drawback in England to a 
farmer's prosperity. What might be accomplished where a su- 
perabundance of human labor exists, what should be done with 
a starving population around you, anxious to be employed, and 
willing to work, are for the consideration of those who find 
themselves placed in these painful circumstances. Such is the 
sad condition of many parts of the European continent. The 
example of a Flemish farmer supporting himself, and wife, and 
three children, keeping a cow, and fatting a hog, upon the prod- 
uce of two and a half acres of land, and selling, for various 



560 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

purposes, the produce of three and a half other acres, — he being 
able, with the help of his wife and children, to cultivate well 
the whole six acres, and to have a great deal of time left for 
other purposes, — is, I am assured, often to be found in Belgium, 
and strikingly illustrates the success of quiet and patient in- 
dustry, joined to temperance and economy. 



CXLL — LIVE STOCK. 

In respect to the live stock of the Continent, a traveller per- 
ceives at once that, with the exception of horses, little attention 
has been paid to the improvement of the dijfFerent breeds. Per- 
haps I should except sheep likewise, as I shall presently show. 
In this respect England distances all other countries within my 
observation ; and has displayed a skill, perseverance, enterprise, 
and success, which are admirable ; and which, in enormous 
prices, have been liberally compensated. A thousand guineas 
for a bull, six hundred guineas for a cow, or three hundred 
guineas a year for the service of a ram, ring in one's ears like 
music from the regions of romance. The symmetry of propor- 
tion, and the extraordinary degree of fatness to which some 
animals are forced, as may be seen particularly at the Smithfield 
Christmas show, in London, and the extreme beauty of the im- 
proved stock of England, are most remdrkable. Aptitude to 
fatten, early maturity, and great weight of carcass, in proportion 
to the age, and the amount or cost of the food required, are 
points of great value in any race of animals which are designed 
for food. But beauty, either of form or color, has only an im- 
aginary value, and no necessary connection with its product, 
cither in beef or milk; and the extreme obesity of many prize 
animals is often obtained at an expense to the farmer or amateur 
much beyond any price which the animal is likely to command 
in the market. Early maturity is a point of great importance ; 
for, excepting where animals are kept for labor, animals kept a 
day beyond their readiness for a fair market, are almost always 
kept at a loss. The secret of profit is in general in a quick 



LIVE STOCK. 561 

exchange. I have Known a farmer to weigh repeatedly two 
fattening oxen of fine thrift, and size, and extreme fatness, and 
he discovered that, for a whole month before they were sent to 
market, they had not gained a single pound. They appeared to 
have reached their acme, beyond which they could not be forced. 
It is a curious fact in regard to the human animal, that in a con- 
dition of health no change of diet and no abundance of diet ever 
carries him beyond a certain point ; so that every adult man has 
what he terms his own weight, which does not vary for years. 
Yvhether an analogy to this fact is to be found in the inferior 
animals, would, as far as it is possible to be ascertained, be a 
curious and useful inquiry. Ordinarily, I admit, not always, ani- 
mals consume in proportion to their size. I believe it will be 
foimd, in general, that two small, or medium-sized animals, of 
good constitution and thrift, pay the farmer better, in proportion 
to the amount of food consumed, than one large animal, which 
would give an equal or superior weight. The English farmers 
generally consider the small Highland cattle the most profitable 
for fattening. We know certainly that the milking properties 
of cows do not always bear a proportion to their size. The two 
best cows which I have known — one making 19^ lbs. of butter 
in a week, and more than 480 lbs. in a year ; and the other hav- 
ing produced more than 20 lbs. in a week — were tv.^o medium- 
sized cows of the North Devonshire breed ; and it seems an es- 
tablished prejudice, if so it must be called, that fatness, and the 
abundant secretion of milk, in the same animal, at tlie same 
time, are to a degree incompatible with each other. 

1. Oxen and Cows. — I saw some very large oxen from 
Normandy in a fat condition on exhibition at Poissy. The 
cattle, however, most admired on that occasion were a cross of 
the improved Durham short-horn with some of the best breeds 
of the country. 

The cows, as met vrith ordinarily in France, are inferior. 
They show in the early part of the season the effect of bad 
keeping in winter, and appear scarcely to recover from it during 
the season. The cows, at several private establishments which 
I visited, were admirable for their milking properties, but of no 
particular race ; though at Grignon, at Petit Bourg, and generally, 
I found the Swiss cows held in high estimation. The Dutch 



562 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

COWS have been a long time celebrated for their abundance of 
milk, which does not surprise one in looking at the rich polders 
in which in summer they are fed, and where they are often seen 
covered with a cloth as a protection against both the dampness 
and the cold. Being unacquainted with the Dutch language, I 
found it difficult to get as particular information as I desired. 
Radcliffe, in his book on Flanders, says, that " they are fair 
milkers ; but in this respect nothing remarkable, the average 
quantity, excepting in the grass districts, where it is infinitely 
greater, being computed at about seven quarts each cow in the 
twenty-four hours, through summer and winter." I quote this 
passage for two reasons ; first, to show how loosely many people 
speak and write on such subjects, for one is wholly at a loss to 
know how much a product infinitehj greater than seven quarts 
may be supposed to be ; and next, to say that an average yield 
of seven quarts per day, winter and summer, is a very great yield, 
and is seldom equalled. There is another report of a farmer at 
the Hague, furnished to Sir John Sinclair, where the milk estab- 
lishment of forty cows produced only about three quarts per day 
to each cow throughout the year. 

The produce of a Dutch cow is rated at about eighty pounds of 
butter, and one hundred and eighty pounds of whole-milk cheese, 
in a year, which certainly is not an extraordinarily large amount. 
They are generally of a black and white color. In some cases 
they are milked three times in a day. In the greater part of Flan- 
ders I found them soiled upon clover or vetches, but principally 
clover ; in Holland, they remain in the pasture all summer, where 
they are milked ; but in winter they make a part of the family, 
and, in truth, live in the common eating-room of the family, it 
being a part of the main house. 

The Swiss cows, as far as they have come under my observa- 
tion, are to be considered of two kinds ; the cows ordinarily kept 
on the common farms, and the mountain cows. The cows I 
found at Hofwyl are, from appearance and the accounts I received 
of them, the very finest of their kind. They are large, but jiot 
tall ; broad in the back, full and square behind ; fine boned, and 
with large udders, giving great quantities of milk. It is difficult, 
especially at any distance of time, and when innumerable objects 
are passing before the mind, to compare two objects, unless they 
are present ; but I think I have never seen finer animals of the 



LIVE STOCK. 563 

kind. The race is known as the Cimmenthal ; and undoubtedly- 
great pains have been taken in their selection and management. 

I am at a loss to state the amount of milk given, or butter 
produced, by these cows, because I do not know the capacity of 
the Swiss measure ; but they are evidently deep milkers, and as 
well as I could understand, they give from sixteen to twenty- 
eight quarts of milk per day, and about two hundred pounds of 
butter by the year. These cows were reported to me to weigh 
from seven hundred to twelve hundred pounds ; they were 
exceedingly broad and round ; short and fine in the leg ; in high 
condition, and extremely well covered; and in their whole 
appearance excelled by none which I have seen. I saw many 
of these fine animals for sale in the cattle-market at Berne. 

There is another kind in Switzerland, which may be called 
the mountain cow, because I found them principally in the most 
hilly districts of the country. These were a small-sized animal, 
of beautiful form, small limbs, exceedingly light of foot, evidently 
fitted to climb hills and precipices, and with eyes as bright as 
those of a gazel, and not unlike a deer in their movements. 
These cows did not promise much in milk. 

2. Goats. — In Switzerland, I found in the mountainous 
districts large herds of goats, which are brought down from the 
mountains at night to be milked, and sent away again at daylight 
in the morning. Many small families keep one goat in their 
stables to supply the family with milk. They give about one 
pint of very rich and delicious milk each per day ; sometimes 
more. Among the mountaineers of Ireland, near the lakes of 
Killarney, I found many families keeping goats for their milk ; 
one family having as many as thirty. These were kept for the 
comfort and luxury of travellers, who visited these wild and 
picturesque regions. They are kept at a small expense, and 
were it not for their wandering and mischievous propensities, a 
milch goat would be a treasure in the family of a poor man. 
They might easily be fed upon the waste vegetables of a poor 
man's garden or his frugal table ; though in most of the poor 
families in Europe there are other mouths who claim first to be 
satisfied, and leave little waste of any kind. The milk of goats 
is rich, and is often recommended to invalids by high medical 
authority. 



564 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

3. Asses. — Of all beasts of burden or draught in Euroj^e, 
asses are, perhaps, the most common. Mules are bred and used 
largely in Spain, as I am informed ; and I found them in the 
mountainous parts of Switzerland for the use of travellers in 
places and passes where carriages cannot be used, and where 
sureness of foot is particularly desired. But asses are every 
where common, and, for the purposes to which they are applied, 
are certainly most serviceable animals. They are in general of 
a small size, and cost from one to two pounds, or from five to 
ten dollars; their keep is of the hardest description, and they 
live to a great age. One was used constantly at Carisbrooke 
Castle, in the Isle of Wight, for drawing water from a very deep 
well seventy years, and he was replaced by another, who, when 
I was there, had been employed for many years. This most 
useful race of animals presents an example of the humiliating 
truth, that real substantial merit does not always find its place in 
this world ; that grateful and kind treatment does not always 
follow the services rendered ; that abuse of power is too common 
a fault ; and that exterior appearance and address are a surer 
passport to favor than solid and useful qualities. I cannot say. 
however, that this is without exception, for I found in some 
cases in Manchester, in England, among the Irish, the donkey 
living in the same room with the rest of the family, and shariug 
ui their comforts, such as they were. Whether this was to be 
considered as an advance upon the usual companionship of an 
[rish cabin, I shall not determine. It shows at least an amiable 
trait of character to acknowledge our obligations, and is quite in 
the equality and fraternity style of the times. 

4. Horses. — The Flemish horses have long been celebrated, 
and most deservedly so, as I have seen for their purpose no 
horses superior. In France and the Low Countries, horses ex- 
clusively are used for agricultural labor. In Flanders, two horses 
are allowed to fifty acres of land. In many cases the farms are 
accessible by canals, and manures are brought and produce car- 
ried away in boats, which, of course, on still waters are navigated 
at a small expense. The Flemish horses are of a medium size, 
compact, active, strong, and extremely well equipped ; these 
farmers being very proud of their teams, as indeed they well 
may be. Add to this, they are groomed with extraordinary care. 



LIVE STOCK. 565 

In my journey from Antwerp to Rotterdam by diligence, it is 
hardly possible to praise the horses too much for their beauty, 
speed, and equipments. 

The French work horses are admirable, and surprised me by 
their excellence. I refer particularly to a breed called the 
Picheron, bred in the interior of France, and used in the dili- 
gences and the omnibuses in Paris. The horses generally 
employed in these cases arc unaltered, which clearly does not 
improve their temper or manners ; they are rather under than 
over size ; they are not groomed with much nicety, nor har- 
nessed with any show ; they are, however, kept in good condi- 
tion, and almost exclusively for work ; they are small-boned, 
well filled out, and extremely compact ; their usual travelling 
gait, according to my experience, with immense loads, is from 
six to seven miles an hour ; in the mail coaches in France, the 
rate of travelling is ten to twelve miles an hour; and nowhere 
are there more punctuality and despatch. The Flemish cart- 
horse, and the breed of French horses to which I have referred, 
would, in my opinion, prove a most valuable acquisition to the 
United States. The Flemish horse is slow in his movements ; 
the French horse extremely active and vigorous : their ordinary 
height is fifteen and a half hands. 

The mode of keeping horses differs much in different places. 
They are almost universally soiled in summer upon green food, 
either clover, vetches, or lucern. I have already mentioned 
the case of a large contractor for conveying the mails, who was 
accustomed, besides straw and hay, to give rye bread in certain 
quantities, whenever the price of oats or other forage or proven- 
der made it upon a fair calculation expedient. For the health 
of the horses he much approved this food. His stock exceeded 
four hundred horses ; oats are almost always deemed an expen- 
sive article ; but the best farmers recommend to give them in 
the straw cut up. Carrots are much valued in Flanders for 
horses ; and considerable quantities of beans are grown in France 
for horses, and given in a bruised or half-ground form. The 
Flemish give their horses what is called a white drink, that is, 
water mixed with some portion of rye or buckwheat meal ; and 
sometimes oil-cake is dissolved in it. 

In some parts of Flanders, the allowance for a horse is in 
wmter fifteen pounds of hay, ten pounds of straw, and seven 
VOL. u. 48 



566 EUROPEAN AGRICULTITRE. 

pounds of oats per day. In summer, clover is given instead of 
hay and straw, seven pounds of oats, and their v/ater whitened 
with rye-meal. In another district, in winter, about six quarts 
of oats, thirty-five pounds of hay, or, in place of fifteen pounds 
of hay, about seventy pounds or a bushel of carrots. In sum- 
mer, seven quarts of oats ; eighty pounds of green clover are 
given. Instead of the oats, about four quarts of bruised beans 
are allowed. The Flemish are always anxious to have their 
horses in the best possible working condition. Excepting only 
the white drink, the keeping of the French horses does not ma- 
terially ditfer from that of the Flemish. The advantages of 
cutting and mixing food for horses are universally acknowledged, 
on the score of economy to the farmer, and of utility to the 
animal fed. 

5. Swine. — The swine are almost every where on the Con- 
tinent, as far as I saw them, miserable ; lank, lean, gaunt, and, 
if they have not a good point about them, they certainly have 
other points in great profusion. If it was a herd of such sv/ine 
as one meets with continually in France and on the Continent, 
which Avere on one occasion driven into the sea and there 
perished, the owners certainly could have had little ground of 
complaint. At Grignon I saw some of the improved breeds 
of England introduced, and it is to be hoped that they will 
extend themselves ; at present the race seems under a curse. 

6. Sheep. — I shall say little of the sheep of the Continent. 
The sheep seen on the rich meadows in Holland are of a large 
size, with long, coarse wool and a heavy fleece. The Saxony 
sheep are well known for the fineness of their wool, their small 
size, and their tenderness of constitution. I have already said 
that I found some excellent results at Grignon and Alfort from 
crossing the Merino with the South Down, but suflicient time 
has not been had to decide whether it may be persevered in with 
advantage — a point no where yet determined. 

The pure Merino sheep, which were exhibited at Poissy from 
the farm of Mr. Gilbert, near Grignon, and originally of the 
stock at Rambouillet, were, beyond all comparison, the finest of 
the kind I have ever seen ; and, I believe, of the very best kind 
of sheep, for the United States, which could be raised. They 



DAIRIES. 56~ 

would \veigli full twenty pounds a quarter when dressed : their 
wool is of a fine quality, and their fleeces extremely large and 
heavy. An intelligent American farmer, who was with me at one 
time when I saw them, and on whose opinion, from his having 
been a great wool-grower, I should place much reliance, perfectly 
coincided with me in my impressions of the merits of these 
extraordinarily beautiful sheep. They are not so large or fat for 
mutton sheep as the Leicester or South Down of England, in 
Vv^hich country mutton, being a favorite food, is much more an 
object of demand than in the United States; but they are suffi- 
ciently large for mutton, and the superior fineness of their wool 
gives them a peculiar value. There exists with some persons 
a prejudice against Merino mutton, but it is entirely without 
reason. 



CXLIL — DAIRIES. 

Holland and portions of Flanders are largely devoted to the 
grazing of cattle, and to the making of butter and cheese. The 
Dutch butter is much celebrated ; it is strongly salted and neatly 
packed, and may be shipped to advantage. Cheese is largely 
manufactured in Holland. The Dutch cheeses are well known. 
They are professedly made of whole milk ; but I must be per- 
mitted to distrust this, certainly in respect to those which I have 
tasted. They are made in the form of cannon-balls, weighing 
about seven pounds each. They are an article of extensive 
commerce, and are sent to market as early as they can be got 
ready. They are exported largely both to France and England. 
The taste of them is good, but in richness they arc very inferior 
to the best English cheeses. 

The Dutch dairy-rooms are models of neatness. Tlie French 
denominate this quality by an expressive word — propriety ; and, 
in the case of the Dutch farmers, it seems impossible it should be 
exceeded. Their vessels, pans, tubs, presses, shelves, dippers, 
every thing, in short, connected with the dairy, is marked by a 
cleanness which seems perfect, and they are bright with excessive 
brightness. The town of Broeck has been long celebrated for 



568 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

its cleanness, and here not a horse ever comes ; the streets or 
passages to the houses are paved with bricks, or with rounded 
stones from the sea-shore; and a well-dressed lady might almost 
sit down in the streets without soiling her robes. The neatness 
of these places is proverbial. I cannot say tliat I have not seen 
it equalled in some private examples; and the sect of the United 
Brethren, otherwise called the Shakers, in the United States, are 
quite as much distinguished in their houses and settlements for 
their excessive cleanness; but it is clearly impossible in this 
respect " to beat the Dutch ; " and this most comfortable, 
agreeable, I will add beautiful, habit of the Dutch, is nowhere 
surpassed. 

The French butter, as found in the markets of Paris, seems 
the perfection of this article. It is generally sold entirely fresh, 
and that of the first quality is delicious. It is found fresh in the 
markets in winter as well as in summer, and is colored with the 
juice of the carrot. The French ofler for sale fifty-three differ- 
ent kinds of cheese. Having tasted of but few, it would be 
presumptuous in me to characterize the whole. The cream 
cheese is excellent. The Neufchatel, which is merely the curd, 
fresh and slightly pressed, is much esteemed. The Rochefort 
resembles the Stilton, and often equals it. These are deemed 
the best. I could learn nothing, either in Holland or France, 
peculiar either in making the cheese, or in the curing or use of 
the rennet. The Swiss cheese, called the Grnyere, is manufac- 
tured both in France and Switzerland, is much esteemed by 
many persons, but its flavor is excessively strong and not agreea- 
ble. I cannot, however, decide for the tastes of other persons. 
The celebrated Parmesan cheese, which commands every where 
the highest price, is made in a limited district in Italy. The 
mode of making it is kept a secret. It is of a light green color, 
and delicious flavor. A distinguished farmer in Switzerland 
informed me that they had repeatedly endeavored to imitate it, 
but without success ; that the agricultural societies had offered 
large premimns for this object ; and that they had actually sent 
persons into the district where it is made, but they were unable 
to get the information. It is conjectured to depend mainly upon 
the nature of the feed which the cows obtain. The ciUTent 
opinion, that it is composed of a portion of asses' milk, is consid- 
ered by the best informed persons as without foundation. 



DAIRIES. 569 

I have gone so fully into the subject of dairying in my obser- 
vations upon English husbandry, that I shall not extend them. 
In Holland, the cows are generally pastured and milked in the 
field. In Flanders, in parts where good pasturage docs not 
abound, they are soiled, and in one of the best districts half an 
acre of clover to a cow is considered ample for the summer. In 
winter they have hay, straw, carrots, turnips, or potatoes, in such 
proportions as a judicious feeder will see to be necessary. But 
there prevails universally in Flanders a practice of giving the 
cows a mixture of rye-meal, or the meal of buckwheat with 
water. This is considered as most indispensable, and, no doubt, 
contributes essentially to increase the milk. In general, the 
Flemish farmers prefer a mixture of food both for their cows 
and their fatting cattle, cutting up straw, hay, turnips, and carrots 
together. 

There are modes of management in the Swiss dairies which 
are well worthy of notice. Where it is desired to avail them- 
selves of the feed upon the mountains, a herd of cows is driven 
therein the summer; and some persons — men in the cases which 
I found — go with them, carrying their provision with them, and, 
occupying a building which is only habitable in summer, tend 
the cows, and make the cheese. They carry little else than 
bread with them, and for this they have occasionally to descend 
the mountain, which, with the return, is no slight task ; but 
bread and buttermilk form their principal and almost sole diet. 

In another case, in a small village, consisting, it may be, of 
fifty or a hundred families, I found an arrangement certainly 
peculiar, but which seemed excellent, and capable of being 
adopted to advantage in many other situations. Some of the 
villagers kept one only, some two or three cows. A man and 
his v/ife, skilled in making cheese, were employed, in a suitable 
building, with all the necessary fixtures, to make the cheese for 
the village. The milk was carried to the place for making the 
cheese, morning and evening, and tbere measured and receipted 
for. Of the whey, each one, when he carried his milk, got his 
proportion in return. The cheese was sold on joint account ; 
and, after deducting expenses, the proceeds were divided accord- 
ing to each one's contributions. This arrangement was excel- 
lent ; first, for those who kept only one or two cows, and who 
could not, under the circumstances, make cheese but to a disad- 
48* 



670 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

vantage ; second, it saved the difFiculty and trouble of a dairy- 
maid in the family — a class of persons who are always difficult 
to be procured ; and, third, it assured the good quality of the 
cheese, by its being made by a person of known and acknowl- 
edged skill. 



CXLIII. — FARM-HOUSES. 

A Dutch farm-house is a remarkable object. They are seen 
scattered and alone at considerable distances from each other, 
over their extensive meadows, generally surrounded by a few 
trees. At a distance they appear like enormous barns. They 
are generally square, covering a large extent of ground, of one 
story in height, and with a roof rising to at least twice the height 
of the body of the house, gathering in from the four sides of the 
house, and terminating in a central point at the top, like an 
Egyptian pyramid. This roof is entirely devoted to the storage 
of grain and hay. The lower part of the house comprehends a 
dwelling for the family, sleeping-rooms, and a parlor or drawing- 
room, which is never used but upon great occasions, such as the 
death or marriage of some one in the family, and a kitchen, 
adjoining which is the keeping-room of the family. Adjoining 
this kitchen, in truth making a part of it, are the cow-stalls ; and 
adjoining this a room for the storage of the cheese, for the milk, 
the churns, the press, the tubs, and oflier dairy utensils, which, 
whether of wood or of brass, are kept in the most polished con- 
dition. The cow-stalls are so constructed that two cowsoccupy 
one stall together, tied by chains, with their heads to the wall, 
and behind them is a deep trench or drain, into which all the 
solid and liquid manure is received. The solid is immediately 
conveyed away to the heap outside the door, and the liquid is 
drained into a covered cistern at the side of the stable, on the 
outside of the house. 

Into this cistern flow likewise all the slops of the house and 
of the dairy, and the drain is kept constantly clean by water. 
In summer the cows are kept and milked in the pasture ; the 
stalls are then most thoroughly scoured and cleaned out, and 



SWISS FARMING. 571 

either carpeted or sanded ; and exhibit the same perfect neatness 
as the rest of the apartment in which the family live. In all 
cases, both in Holland and Flanders, the cow-stalls, while occu- 
pied by the cows, are frequently washed with water, which, 
besides the purpose of cleanliness, serves to increase the contents 
of the urine cistern ; and over every stall is a cord suspended, by 
which the tail of the cow is tied when milked, to prevent her 
slapping the face of the milker, or throwing any dirt into the 
pail. Indeed, the neatness of all their arrangements is perfect. 
The farmer and laborers have their clean shoes or slippers at the 
door, where they always exchange their out-door shoes on enter- 
ing, that they may bring no dirt into the house. The contrast 
between a Dutch farm-house and an Irish cabin or wigwam, is 
most remarkable. 

The Swiss farm-house differs entirely from the Dutch. It is 
a somewhat stately erection, generally of two stories and high 
roof, with a piazza in front of the second story, to which there 
is access from the outside by steps. The lower story, or ground 
floor, is occupied by the live stock ; and the second lloor by the 
family. This spirit of fraternization and equality, wliich a})pears 
both among the Dutch and the Swiss, in regard to those useful 
animals upon whom their living and wealth depend, is certainly 
an amiable trait of character ; and is much more harmless in its 
operation, if we may judge from the results in the two cases, 
than when applied to human society. The neatness of several 
of the Swiss farm-houses which I visited, if not so remarkable 
as that of the Dutch, is really exemplary. 



CXLIV. — SWISS FARMING. 

The farming in Switzerland varies very much in dillerent 
cantons or districts. The soil varies, and the rugged aspect and 
broken and mountainous character of the country give a variety 
to their cultivation and modes of life, which at once impress a 
visitor. The habits and appearance of the population certainly 
differ much in different parts. 



572 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

T[iere are large portions of Switzerland wholly devoted to 
pasturage, and which, from their inaccessibility to the plough, 
can be applied to no other purpose. In these cases, where cows 
cannot go, goats find their way. But wherever the plough or 
the spade can be used they are diligently employed, and this 
activity is stimulated in many parts of the country by a dire 
struggle to procure a subsistence under circumstances most inau- 
spicious and severe. In parts of Switzerland, the melting of the 
snow on small patches of ground is hastened by throwing small 
fragments of slate-stone upon it ; such, I may say, is the necessary 
impatience to get at the ground seasonably to put the seed in 
for a crop. 

In some parts the country is open, and fields of considerable 
extent are under admirable cultivation ; in other places, the 
smallest nook, the least patch by a running stream, and the most 
secluded valley, will be husbanded with the greatest care. The 
valley of Chamouni, enclosed by lofty mountains covered with 
the snows of untold centuries, and running at the very foot of 
Mont Blanc, the sublime monarch of these Alpine heights, was 
green and beautiful, waving with crops of grain ; and when I 
was tliere, covered with merry hay-makers. I may add, that 
these haymakers were almost all of them stout and active wo- 
men, whom I saw mowing as well as making, raking, and loading 
hay. They were very cheerful and seemed to enjoy ruddy health. 

In the arable districts of Switzerland I was told that the farms 
consisted usually of fifty acres, and many of these farms gave 
the strongest indications of independence and comfort. The 
farms in Switzerland are divided by fences; and, with the 
exception of the loftiest heights, it may be said that a Swiss 
very much resembles a New England landscape. 



CXLV. — HOF W YL. IRRIGATION. 

I visited in Switzerland the celebrated establishment of the 
late Mr. De Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, near Berne, for education. 
No school is better known ; and it is believed that none ever 



HOFWYL. IRRIGATION. 573 

better deserved public esteem and confidence. It does not come 
within my province to speak of it in this place as a literary insti- 
tution ; but as a farm it may be considered as a model well worth 
studying. I have already spoken of the cows at this place, of 
which there were sixty, the superiors to which, in condition and 
produce, have not come within my view. 

The most remarkable improvement which I witnessed in this 
place was in irrigation. The land irrigated was in the shape of a 
bowl or basin, of which one side was wanting. The water, after 
turning a flour mill, was brought a considerable distance in a race- 
way on a bank, and then was carried round through successive 
rivulets formed round the sides of this semicircle or amphitheatre, 
watering the intervals between these gutters or trenches, and 
afterwards spreading itself over an extensive piece of flat land ; 
thus, at pleasure, watering one hundred and fifty acres of land. 
Nothing which I have seen could be better managed ; and the 
success of the improvement has been a valuable compensation 
for any expense which has been incurred. The land is kept 
continually in grass, and the water is let on several times in a 
season. It was deemed inexpedient to keep the water on more 
than half a day at a time. 

I shall find no more suitable place than this to mention the 
irrigation in the neighborhood of Milan. This is a level and 
most fertile country. A good deal of rice is cultivated in its 
neighborhood. The fields have their trenches, and cross ditches, 
and embankments made with great care. The water is brought 
from a neighboring lake, and these fields are irrigated at pleasure. 
Where there are facilities for it, or where even they can be 
formed within any reasonable expense, there are no more suc- 
cessful improvements than irrigation. Even simple pure water is 
of great fertilizing power ; still more when it brings with it the 
washings of cultivated fields, or other enriching matters, which 
it may collect in its course. A diversity of opinion prevails as 
to the length of time during which water may be allowed to 
remain on the land. The passage of the water over the land is 
preferred to having it remain stagnant ; and an irrigation of a 
few hours' duration is generally considered more eligible than a 
longer continuance. 

The farm at Hofwyl presents all the improvements which 
modern art and skill could bring to it, with the most improved 



574 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

implements in use. Indeed, it may be considered as a model 
farm. A considerable number of the pupils Avere lads, who pay 
the expenses of their education and living by their labor. The 
number of pupils at this institution, which has heretofore been 
very great, furnished the best possible market for the abundant 
produce of the farm. 



CXLVL — LODI'S BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENT. 

I found one humble establishment of a philanthropic character, 
of which I deem it my duty to take notice. In a quiet and 
secluded village in the canton of Berne, I went with some friends 
to visit an humble peasant by the name of Lodi. He was a man 
of powerful intellect and extraordinary decision of character. 
His resolution once fixed, he was not easily turned aside from its 
execution. His mind from his childhood was profoundly im- 
pressed with a strong sense of religious duty, and his heart was 
warm with sympathy and benevolence for his fellow-men. He 
had received the advantages of a good common education, and 
had done much towards improving himself. He had a very 
small patrimony left to him ; he married early, and had one 
child. He found in his wife a mind and resolution congenial 
with his own. Looking with pity upon many orphan and for- 
saken or neglected children about them, he determined to do 
what he could towai'ds rescuing some of these unfortunate chil- 
dren from the almost certain ruin which menaced them ; and 
his wife and himself agreed to receive as many of them as would 
be given to them for this purpose, and as they could possibly sup- 
port by their united exertions. When I visited them, they had 
eighteen under their care, whom, in fact, they had adopted, for 
he made no difference between their treatment and that of his 
own child ; and they were all taught to look upon him and his 
wife as their parents, and themselves as brothers and sisters. 
They lived with them, and worked with them as their own 
children. He devoted a certain portion of every day to giving 
them a useful moral and religious education, and the rest of the 



LODIS BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENT. 575 

time was given to work on the land. Industry and useful labor, 
economy, frugality, contentment, universal kindness and love, 
mutual affection and forbearance, and the fear of God and an 
humble and entire reliance upon his providence, formed the 
great principles which governed the \vhole household, and 
which presented themselves strongly illustrated in the examples 
of the father and mother of this household. This was exclu- 
sively an agricultural establishment, the girls and boys being 
taught and accustomed to all the labors and duties of their con- 
dition. He had many difficulties to struggle with in feeding- 
and clothing so large a family ; and in the scarcity of 1816, from 
the perishing of the potato, it was a most difficult effort to get 
through, and he then received some slight aid from abroad. At 
first his views were suspected, and he was treated with distrust 
and ill-humor by the villagers. But he had conquered every 
hostile prejudice ; his disinterestedness and philanthropy are 
universally acknowledged ; his children are examples to all, of 
good conduct and improvement ; his neighbors feel happy to 
render him some aid, and he is known every where as the good 
father of the village. This is an eminent example of the noblest 
philanthropy ; of immense good being accomplished by the most 
limited and humble means ; and of what may be done by heroic 
self-sacrifice, by noble and generous purposes, by indomitable 
resolution, and unslacking perseverance. I saw his school, and 
witnessed his parental deportment among his family ; I sat down 
at his frugal board, and partook of his simple meal of bread and 
cheese and wine, and I felt myself in the presence of the true 
nobility of human nature, and that no monarch in Europe had 
power to confer upon me a higher honor. It is not difficult to 
be charitable on a grand scale ; it is not difficult for a rich man 
to give away his superfluous thousands to any splendid charity, 
especially when he can use them no longer ; but to devote one's 
life to the poor, to be willing to share in their poverty, to take 
the stray lambs of the flock into one's bosom, and to make the 
orphans, the outcast, the houseless, your own children, and give 
them, in the midst of poverty, a useful education, and to qualify 
them for the business of life, to be useful and respectable, is an 
enterprise of the noblest character, conferring immortal honor on 
him who undertakes it. 



576 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



CXLVIL— INSTITUTION FOR RECLAIMING VICIOUS 
CHILDREN. 

In the neighborhood of Berne, likewise, I visited another 
philanthropic institution, in which I was much interested. A 
few persons had contributed the means of purchasing a valuable 
and suitable estate for the purpose of establishing an agricultural 
school for vagabond boys, or those who have been convicted at 
the courts of law, and who, after suffering the legal penalties 
of their crimes, and being released from prison without character, 
without friends, without a home, or the means of procuring an 
honest living, seem to have no alternative other than that of 
returning to their former course of idleness, beggary, and crime. 
This undertaking is thus far eminently successful ; they having 
found an individual of high intellectual and moral attainments, 
and of indomitable resolution and great disinterestedness, ■<vho 
devotes himself to the reclamation and education of tliese poor 
and wretched children. About sixty individuals are now under 
his care. The farm is well cultivated, and chiefly by hand and 
spade labor. The most remarkable features about the establish- 
ment are the absence of all peculiar dress or external badges by 
which the boys could be distinguished ; and of all fences or 
bars by which the escape of the boys might be prevented. The 
boys are divided into parties of ten or twelve, who work together 
under the direction of a foreman. The whole discipline of the 
institution is moral ; and their punishments for irregularities, 
idleness, or other faults, are of a kind much more to affect the 
mind and conscience of the pupils than their bodies. 



CXLVIII. — CONDITION OF THE POOR AND LABORING 

CLASSES. 

Europe abounds with philanthropic institutions ; and there 
exists a large demand for them. In Switzerland a society has 
been formed in the agricultural districts, under the patronage of 



CONDITION OF" THE POOR AND LABORING CLASSES. 577 

the government, '' for the public good," intending especially, 
under this coniprehensiv^e designation, to embrace all means or 
measures which may relieve, benefit, or improve the character 
and condition of the poorer and laboring classes. 

The condition of these classes in Europe, in general, strongly 
claims the interest of benevolent minds. Their wages are small ; 
their toil in general hard ; their food scanty and mean ; and 
their comforts extremely few. It is one of tlie monstrous anom- 
alies in the disposition of wealth, that those by whose toil it is 
created receive the smallest portion of it ; and, in the midst of a 
plenty growing out of their sweat and labor, they are often crip- 
pled by want, and perish with starvation. 

Philanthropic minds are now actively at work to discover a 
cure, or at least a mitigation, of this injustice ; but it is much 
more easy to complain of an evil, than to point out a remedy. 
The Swiss are proposing to give up all the public lands, and 
Individuals with large possessions are olfering to relinquish por- 
tions of their estates, that land may be given or furnished, on 
certain reasonable conditions, to the laboring poor, who are found 
to be rapidly increasing among them ; and Avho, in the moiui- 
tainous districts, in some parts of the country, are as miserable 
as the poor Irish. I saw, occasionally, on the Continent, cases 
of extreme destitution ; and, in those places which had been 
visited the previous year with the potato disease, I saw much 
and extreme poverty ; yet, I confess, I saw nothing on the Con- 
tinent to equal the degradation, the squalidness, and wretched- 
ness of the Irish, even before that sweeping calamity, which has 
consigned so many thousands of them to the grave. 

The French have recently proposed violent remedies for these 
a,cknowledged evils. The visionary and mad among them have 
demanded the perfect equalization of property, which, if carried 
out to its full extent, would result only in universal injustice and 
pillage. The scheme is as vain and impracticable, as to reduce 
the Alps of Switzerland to a level with the low countries of 
Holland and Belgium. The inequalities in the condition of men 
do not constitute the great evils which are complained of. A 
poor man is not in a worse condition because his neighbor is 
rich, unless the rich man abuses his power to injure him ; nor 
are the poor necessarily the poorer, except by comparison, lor the 
riches of the community in which they live. As far as wealth 
VOL. II. 49 



578 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

is a stimulant to industry, and an instrument of good, it becomes 
a universal blessing. The insane, the blind, the deaf and dumb, 
the maimed, the sick, the old and decayed, the fatherless and 
friendless children, and, indeed, all who, by the dispensations 
of Divine Providence, are deprived of the power of helping and 
sustaining themselves, should be helped and sustained by the 
community. But what is to be done for the able-bodied labor- 
ers, who are not unwilling to work, but who have no opportunity 
of exerting their power? This is a great question, and involves 
immense difficulties in the present organization of society. 

I see no grounds to hope for any immediate, speedy, or effec- 
tual remedy for the evils which exist. I am not looking for an 
early millennium. The wealth of the world is every where 
increasing at a rapid rate, and almost beyond the dreams of 
avarice. The poverty of the world seems increasing, especially 
in the old world, in a corresponding ratio. As wealth increases, 
the value of money is diminished ; but as the wages of labor do 
not increase as the value of money diminishes, and the prices 
of the articles of human subsistence increase, and as the value 
of labor is continually diminished by tlie increase of laborers, 
and the augmentation of the population goes on rapidly in a state 
of general peace, the condition of the laboring classes becomes 
the more straitened, and the great evil of unemployed, though 
Avilling labor, is augmented. 

One of the first duties of the state should be, not to give 
labor, but, as far as can be, to secure to every one willing to work, 
an opportunity of exerting his powers, and, as far as is consis- 
tent with th« general good, and prejudicial to no just rights of 
any, to do this in any way or form to which his inclinations may 
lead him, or to which his talents may be adapted. Monopolies 
of every description, excepting so far as they may be given as 
premiums to inventive genius, are to be condemned. The mo- 
nopoly of land in the old world is a serious evil. The traveller 
passes over miles and miles of unoccupied and unimproved land, 
capable of sustaining its thousands and its millions in comfort, 
and on the borders of these immense tracts finds thousands of 
human beings suffering and perishing, for the want of an oppor- 
tunity of procuring their living out of this land, from which 
they are excluded. This tract belongs to the crown ; that tract 
belongs to the church ; these immense domains are held by some 



CONDITION OF THE POOR AND LABORING CLASSES. 579 

powerful individual, who chooses to keep it in its present state 
for his game preserves ; another large tract is devoted to some 
object, which, if it had its value centuries ago, has now ceased 
to be of use. Is there any reason why this land should not be 
made available to the support of perishing thousands, whose 
voluntary labor would make it so available ? In feudal times 
the powerful baron or lord took care of his vassals, and regarded 
himself as to a degree bound to provide for them from the estate, 
which they cultivated and protected. Things in this respect are 
changed; now, the holders of large estates, who seem every 
where actuated exclusively by a commercial spirit, feel no further 
bound to their laborers, than to manage their estate in the least 
expensive mode possible, to take every advantage of the compe- 
tition in the labor market, and get their work performed as 
cheaply as possible ; and then, having got their labor accom- 
plished, and having paid their laborers, in money, the miserable 
pittance promised, dismiss them without any further concern for 
them. This grows out of the modern refinements of political 
economy, which measures all good and all values by a pecuniary, 
standard,./ A state of South Carolina slavery, as far as the physi- 7^ 
-cal comforts of the laborer are concerned, has many advantages ^]r 
over this. 

All expectations of any great changes or improvements in the 
institutions of society are, in my humble opinion, vain. There 
is not wisdom enough, nor virtue enough, to effect, or, if effected, 
to maintain them. Ambition, the love of power, avarice, vanity, 
and pride, those mighty passions which sway the heart, and 
whose power increases in correspondence with the means of 
indulgence, impose insurmountable impediments to the progress 
and influence of the true principles of Christian equality, equity, 
and kindness. Men without power fancy they should not abuse 
it, if acquired ; but the possession soon contradicts this promise. 
Poor men persuade themselves, if they were rich, their wealth 
would be used only to do good, and make others happy ; but the 
acquisition of wealth too often dries up all the springs of sym- 
pathy and kindness, and stimulates inordinately the thirst for 
further acquisition. 

Violent revolutions present remedies full of terror and alarm ; 
sometimes only open new sources of wretchedness, and are but 
the change of one tyranny for another, and that even more 



580 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

severe and terrible. We may hope something from advancing 
and extending education. This education may improve and 
enhghten public opinion ; and, in the present wide and con- 
stantly-extending influence of the press, public opinion seems to 
present the strongest barrier against the abuse of power, and to 
be the great exciter to justice and to philanthropic exertion. In 
proportion as public sentiment is strong, and based upon and 
controlled by the principles of Christian equity, — alas! so little 
understood, — we may hope for some substantial amelioration in 
the condition of society ; but this seems at present distant and 
uncertain. 

One is consoled in tliis case by looking at the amount of good 
which may be eftected by such men as the Swiss peasant whom 
I have described. Suppose him successful in rescuing from 
wretchedness, and in forming to habits of industry, frugality, and 
good conduct, only the eighteen children, whom, like an affec- 
tionate shepherd, he has taken like lambs in his arms. Imagine 
these children going out into the world to multiply the good 
which he has done, and to spread its influences through the vari- 
ous ramifications of society. What a rich harvest will arise, and 
be the precursor of other and richer harvests from the small seed 
sown by this disinterested and noble, but poor and humble 
peasant ! 

I fear my readers will think me straying from my proper duty, 
and I have, therefore, cut short these reflections. I could not 
pardon myself if I could look at the condition of the laboring 
classes in the old world without the deepest concern. At pres- 
ent, the farmers of the United States have the greatest reason to 
congratulate themselves, to say nothing of the higher duty of 
religious gratitude, for the circumstances in which they are 
placed. There is at present land enough there for all, and open 
to the acquisition of even the humblest man, who is willing to 
labor, and to unite with this labor temperance and frugality. 



IMPORTANT PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 581 



CXLIX. — IMPORTANT PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 

The great points to which I think the attention of American 
farmers, and of other farmers, should be called, I shall briefly 
enumerate. 

1. Thorough Draining and Deep Cultivation. — The first 
of all improvements should be the thorough draining and deep 
cultivation of the soil. The Deanston system of thorough drain- 
ing and subsoiling has effected immense benefits in England, and 
promises to establish itself as one of the greatest single improve- 
ments ever made in husbandry. In Flanders, thorough draining, 
as it is called, does not prevail ; but their surface-draining is most 
carefully attended to, and trenching with the spade is even much 
better, though in most cases more expensive, than subsoiling. 
Indeed, their land, to the depth of two feet in the best cultivated 
districts, is completely turned over, and thoroughly intermixed 
once in the course of every six years. 

2. Manures. — The second great point, and that which 
almost transcends all others in its claims upon the farmer's atten- 
tion, is the manufacture and increase of manure. It must be 
acknowledged that the resources for this object within the reach 
of most farmers are not half used, and means of creating and 
accumulating manures are neglected or wasted, which waste, if 
it could be represented by any pecuniary value, would astonish 
us. On many an English farm there are resources for manure 
neglected or lost, which would be much more than an equivalent 
for the rent. Let me here revert to the immense value of liquid 
manure, and the provision for and means of saving it, which I 
have treated so much at large. 

3. Soiling of Cattle. — The third point of great considera- 
tion is that of the soiling of cattle. There are vast tracts of 
pasture land, to which the plough cannot be applied. Sheep 
and young cattle may occupy these. But the former will find 
an immense advantage in soiling his beef cattle and cows, and 
oftentimes his sheep also. They will be fed at less expense ; 

49* 



582 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

they will be more under his inspection and control ; they will 
give him equal, and, according to the opinions of many experi- 
enced farmers, greater returns in beef, butter, and cheese, than 
if kept in the ordinary way. Above all, the extraordinary and 
valuable increase of his manure-heap and cistern, under such 
circumstances, is a consideration over all others. Next to labor, 
manure is the great element of a farmer's prosperity. 

4. Improvement of Live Stock. — The fourth great matter 
to which I would call the farmer's attention is the improvement 
of his live stock. It is difficult to speak too highly of the skill 
and success of the English in the improvement of their breeds 
of sheep, swine, cattle, and, I will add, horses. I do not say 
that their breeds are all such as are best adapted for the United 
States. I need not repeat the opinions which I have already 
given in this matter. Different breeds of animals are suited to 
particular localities; and the extent of the United States presents 
every variety of aspect, soil, and climate ; and is marked by dif- 
ferent kinds of husbandry, such as the raising of stock for beef 
or labor ; the growing of wool, fine or coarse, short or long ; and 
the produce of the dairy. These points are all to be considered 
in the selection of a stock for breeding. An improved Durham 
short-horn would thrive and develop all his richness and beauty 
in the fertile meadows of Kentucky and Ohio, and the rich 
prairies of the west, who would become poor and dwarfish in 
some of the rocky and almost barren pastures of the north. But 
that to which I wish particularly to call the attention of tht 
farmers of the United States is, the improvement of their stocL: 
by patient care, skill, and selection. They may import animalf 
of improved breeds to advantage ; they may cross the best of 
their own stocks with the best animals which they can find ; 
and, above all, let them determine always to select the best 
animals for breeding, and breed only from the best ; never sacri- 
fice a superior calf or lamb to the butcher, nor be satisfied with 
the services of inferior animals for the increase of their stock, 
under which they would be sure to deteriorate. 

5. Improved Articles of Culture. — The next matter to 
which I beg their attention, is the cultivation of esculent vegeta- 
bles, the improvement of plants, and the introduction of new 



IMPORTANT PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 583 

articles of cultivation. The cultivation of esculent vegetables 
for stock, such as turnips, ruta-baga, carrots, parsnips, or beet- 
root, is a matter which I would strongly recommend. Besides 
its being more conducive to the health of the animals, to their 
increase in meat and in milk, it will enable the farmer, in the 
feeding of his cattle, to consume his straw to advantage, and 
save more expensive forage ; and so increase his stock. 

The improvement of plants, by the careful selection of the 
earliest ripe, the fullest and the most perfect plants and seeds, 
may be carried to an equal extent with the impi-ovement of ani- 
mals. The fine barley called the Chevalier barley, and many 
of the finest kinds of wheat which are cultivated in Europe, are 
the product of some individual plants, selected in a large field, 
and carefully cherished by the cultivator. The difterence in the 
time of ripening, the ditference in the amount of product, the 
difierence in the quality of the grain, are all essential consid- 
erations. 

6. New Articles of Culture. — The introduction of new 
articles of cultivation is a point of much importance. The flax 
crop is not by any means so extensively cultivated in the United 
States, as it may be to advantage, especially when the value of 
its seed for fatting cattle is taken into the account. No article 
is more nutritious nor fattening both for sheep and cattle. I am 
diffident in advising the cultivation in the United States of the 
oleaginous plants of Holland and Belgium, such as colza, rape, 
poppy, &c. The expediency of doing this can only be deter- 
mined by experiment. The cultivation of beet-root for sugar, 
considering the cheapness of the manufacture where it is well 
understood, and managed on a large scale, and especially in con- 
nection with the value of the refuse for feeding and fattening 
cattle, deserves much thought and inquiry. Without reference 
to the production of sugar, the value of the crop for feeding stock, 
considering that no crop yields more, is more relished by cattle, 
or keeps sound to a later period in the spring, is great, and 
strongly recommends it. Few crops yield more to the acre, 
when well cultivated, or leave the land in better condition for a 
succeeding crop of grain. My own views in regard to this crop 
have most essentially altered in its favor. 

Lucern, sainfoin, and vetches, are comparatively little culti- 



584 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

vated in the United States. They are all, in proper situations, 
highly valuable. Lucern, in any system of soiling, would be 
extremely useful as coming early in the spring, and giving under 
good culture an enormous yield, being at the same time a plant 
which actually enriches the soil. For later feeding in the season, 
the farmers of the United States have that most valuable of all 
plants for its forage and its grain, Indian corn, or maize. I may 
say, with the great Arthur Young, " that a country is signally 
blessed above others, which can grow Indian corn." In the 
Middle States of the United States, sainfoin might perhaps be 
cultivated to advantage; in the Northern States, experience has 
shown that the winters are too severe for it. It makes a most 
nutritious and excellent hay. Vetches yield a large abundance 
of green feed. St. John's-day rye, of which I have spoken, may 
be cut two or three times, and yield also a large crop of grain. 
This would make an excellent forage for the purpose of soiling ; 
so, also, the improved Italian rye-grass, which, when properly 
cared for, bears cutting several times in a season, and yields most 
abundantly. 

I must add, in the next place, that I should be glad to see the 
cultivation of the vine extended in the United States. In many 
parts of France, Germany, and Switzerland, it occupies land, 
steep acclivities, heights wholly inaccessible to a horse or cart, 
and where the manure is always carried up, the produce brought 
down, and sometimes the very soil in which it grows, trans- 
ported by hand. There is land enough in the United States for 
its cultivation without such extreme toil. As an article of 
commerce, it would probably prove lucrative ; and as an article 
of comfort, perhaps few are more grateful and harmless. I speak 
in this case of the light wines of France, which do not intoxicate 
unless drimk to beastly excess. The strong wines of Spain and 
Portugal are made by some factitious process, and charged with 
brandy ; but the light wines of France, being the pure juice of 
the grape, exhilarate, but do not intoxicate. They take the 
place of tea and cotfee among the laboring people, and constitute 
an innocent alleviation of their severe toil. I should be sorry in 
any way to abridge these comforts, especially as I may say in- 
truth, after travelling a long distance in the wine-growing dis- 
tricts, and at the time of the wine-makmg, or vintage, when it 
is to be had in the greatest abundance, that I saw no drunken- 



IMPORTANT PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 585 

ness or intoxication in any degree ; and I may add, that so far 
as my observation goes, there is not a more temperate people, 
than are to be found in the wine-growing departments of France. 
I need not add, that under the auspicious circumstances in 
which the United States are placed, her agriculture must be con- 
stantly increasing in importance to the country itself, and to the 
civilized world, for her commerce penetrates every sea, and her 
bread-grains, as they have already been, may be of immense im- 
portance, and of indispensable necessity, in feeding the inhabit- 
ants of the old world. 

This completes the task which I undertook of giving, from 
personal observations, an account of European Agriculture and 
Rural Economy. I commend my work to the indulgence and 
candor of my readers. It was an undertaking too great for an 
individual to accomplish as one would desire that it should be 
done. It must satisfy me, I hope it will satisfy my friends, that 
I have, with unceasing anxiety, sought to execute it as well as I 
could. It was not to be expected that I should give a complete 
system of agriculture ; but I have constantly endeavored to col- 
lect and present that information which would be most useful ; 
and to convey it in a simple and practical form. I have omitted 
many circumstances, because they are well known. I have 
given full details wherever I thought they were required. As to 
my opinions on any subject upon which I have treated, I can 
only answer that they are my own ; that I am quite ready to 
yield them, when I find, upon further information, reason so to 
do ; and, above all, that my opinions or judgments do not en- 
croach upon the personal right of independent judgment and 
opinion in any and all others. 

European agriculture lies under many burdens, from which 
the United States are free, and I pray may long remain so. The 
weight of taxation in most of the countries of Europe is very 
oppressiv^e. The unproductive classes are numerous to an excess. 
Immense standing armies ; governments enormously expensive, 
and in a great measure irresponsible to the people ; ecclesiastical 
establishments, and their attaches, demanding large contributions 
from labor, and returning, in many cases, little more in value than 
the bishop's blessing in jEsop's fable, are all to be sustained from 
the soil, and by the labor of those who cultivate it. In their 



586 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

present exemption from these burdens, the farmers of the United 
States are greatly blessed. May they duly appreciate their sin- 
gular advantages, than which none greater ever fell to the lot of 
man in his social condition. To them we may apply the beau- 
tiful line of the immortal poet — 

O! ter beati agricolae, si sua bona norint.* 



Thrice happy farmers, if they only knew their blessings. 



APPENDIX. 



EXTRACTS FROM THE REV. MR. RHAM'S FLEMISH HUSBANDRY. 

SELECT FARMS. 

I. " A little beyond Courtray is a farm particularly noticed by Mr. Radcliffe. 
This farm is one of the finest and most compact we have seen. It consists of 
about one hundred and forty acres, of which about twenty are fine meadows 
along the river, occasionally flooded in winter, but not irrigated ; about ten 
acres are rich heavy land, adjoining the meadows, in which beans and wheat 
thrive well ; all the remainder, about one hundred and six acres, lie in an oblong 
field bounded by a hedgerow. A road or patli, sLx feet wide, runs through the 
middle of the field. The soil of this field is a rich light loam, Avhich lies over a 
substratum of clay, but at such a depth as to be perfectly sound and dry. It is 
not extremely fertile in its own nature, but has been rendered so by many years 
of an improving husbandry. Every part of the land has been repeatedly trenched 
and stirred two or three feet deep ; and the immense quantity of manure, chiefly 
liquid, put on year after year, has converted the whole into a very rich mould. 
The strength and vigor of the crops bear witness to the goodness of the hus- 
bandry. There were fifteen acres of most beautiful flax, of a bright straw color, 
and the stems a yard long. Tliis, besides the seed, was worth in tlie stack from 
twenty-five pounds to thirty pounds per acre ; twelve acres of colza had produced 
about four hundred bushels of seed ; eighteen acres of oats looked so promising, 
tliat they could not be set at less than forty-five bushels per acre ; eighteen acres 
of wheat, which stood well with short but plump ears, we valued at forty bushels 
per acre; eighteen acres of rye, partly cut, with the straw above six feet high, 
would probably produce rather more than the wheat There were six acres of 
white poppy, of which every plant was strong and upright, and the ground under 
it as clean as a garden : the expected produce would be about twenty to twenty- 
tliree bushels per acre ; six acres were in potatoes, expected to produce three 
hundred and seventy-eight bushels per acre. A small patch, about an acre, 
was in carrots, which looked fine ana large ; twelve acres were in clover, nearly 
the whole of which was cut green to give to the cows and horses ; it produces 
three good cuts in the year where it is not allowed to go to seed. The ten 
acres of heavy land were partly in beans and partly in wheat 

" Thus we have one hundred and sixteen acres all profitably cropped, leaving 
four acres for the roads and farm-buildings. Although this farm is within two 



588 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 

miles and a half of Courtray, the greatest part of the manure is collected on the 
farm. Rape-cake is used most profusely, and to this, as well as to the depth of 
the soil, the beauty of the flax is ascribed." 

II. " Near Alost we met with one of the smallest farms, which will maintain 
a family Avithout other work : it was barely five acres. There was a small 
orchard of about a quarter of an acre, in which there were some thriving apple 
and plum trees. The grass under tliese was good ; and the only cow which the 
man had was led by the wife to graze there for a short time every day, appa- 
rently more for exercise tlian for food. The grass seemed to have been cut for 
her in another part. The man regretted that he had not the means to purchase 
a second cow, as he could maintain two very well. Half of the land was 
in wheat, the other half in clover, flax, and potatoes ; so that the clover did not 
recur sooner than in six years ; the flax and potatoes in nine. As soon as the 
wheat Avas cut, he began to hack the stubble about four inches deep, with the 
heavy hoe, and as fast as he got a piece done, it was sown with turnips, after 
having some of the contents of tlie urine-tank poured over it; for, small as the 
farm was, it had its reservoir for this precious manure. Thus a considerable 
portion of the wheat stubble was soon covered with young turnips of a quick- 
growing sort, which, if sown before the middle of August, were fit to be pulled 
in November, and stored in tlie cellar for winter use. There was a small patch 
of cameline, which was sown less for the seed than for the stem, of whicli he 
made brooms in his leisure hours, when snow covered the ground. The whole 
five acres had to be dug in the course of the year, and as much of it as possible 
trenched ; the soil being a stiff" loam of a good depth, which was much improved 
by trenching and stirring. The milk and potatoes fed the family, with the 
addition of a little salt pork ; for a pig was fed on the refuse of the food given 
to the cow, and a very little corn, and consequently v/as not overburdened with 
fat. Most of the wheat and all the flax were sold, and more than paid the rent, 
which was not high — about ten pounds a year. Incessant labor kept the man 
in good health, and his wife was not idle. They had two or three young chil- 
dren ; but, except the wish for another cow, there seemed no great dissatisfac- 
tion with their lot, nor any great fears for the future. They had no parish-fund 
to fall back upon, not even a union workhouse ; but, had they come to Avant by 
unforeseen accidents, they would have found the hand of private charity stretched 
out to help them." 



THE END. 



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embellished with fine steel engravings. Price 
Sl.OO. 

THE POEMS OF OSSIAN ; a new edition, 
containing ten steel engravings, and printed on 
fine paper, 1 vol., 12mo. Price $100. 



THOMSON AND POLLOK; crntaining 
the Seasons, by James Thomson, and Course of 
Time, by Robert PoUok , complete in one volume, 
r2mo, with portrait. Price Sl.OO. 

WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS ; 

an entirely new edition, from plates just stereo- 
typed, complete in 1 vol., 12mo, with portrait. 
Price 81.00. 

CAMPBELL'S POETICAL WORKS; in- 
cluding his " Pleasures of Hope," Theodoric, and 
Miscellaneous Poems, many of which are not 
contained in the former editions. Complete in 1 
vol., 12mo, with portrait. Price SLOO. 



The above poetical works are uniform in size and binding, and are sold sep- 
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PUBLICATIONS OF 



HOME AMD MACAULIY'S 
ISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

BOSTON LIBRARY EDITION. 



PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY 

Are now publishing HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the 
Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Abdication of James II., 1688, and continued 
from that time by 

r. BABINGTON MACAULAY, 

with notes and references ; being an accurate reprint from the Standard 
English Editions. The above works are published in large crown 12mo. 
form, bound uniform in muslin and sheep binding, printed from good clear 
type, forming altogether the cheapest and most perfect Library Edition of the 
two authors, ever issued from the American press. 

Each volume contains over fu-e hundred lavse duodecimo pages, and are 
sold separately or together at 62 cents per vdlume. 

Extract from the North Amer-ican Revicio for October, 1849. 

"The best advice that can be given even now to the diligent student of 
English history, is to read Hume first, and Henry, Lingard, Hallam, Brodie, 
Guizot, Aikin, and a host of others, afterwards. Any one of these later can- 
didates for public favor may be omitted without material loss ; Hume alone is 
indispensable. 

But the greatest compliment that Hume's work ever received, is that 
which has just been paid to it perforce by the most brilliant and captivating 
of English writers of our own day. The all-accomplished Mr. Macaulay, 
who seems to have been born for the sole purpose of making English history 
as fascinating as one of Scott's romances, durst not enter into competition with 
his great predecessor, but modestly begins his iiistory almost at the point where 
Mr. Hume's terminates. Mr. Macaulay evidently prefers to be a continuator 
of Hume, rather than to wrestle with him on his own ground. 



Phillips^ Sampson c^* Comjxnirj's Publications. 

COMPLETE 

LIBRARY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 

ILLUSTRATED WITH 

400 ENGRAVINGS. 

This work was carefully compiled by A. A. Gould, M.A., from the works 
of Cuvier, Griffith, Richardson, Geoffrey, Lacepede, Buffon, Goldsmith, 
Shaw, Montague, Wilson, Lewis and Clark, Audubon, and other eminenl 
writers on Natural History. 

It is all comprised in one imperial octavo volume of about 1000 pages, 
handsomely bound, and is in itself, as its title indicates, a complete library on 
this subject. Price $3.00. 



SHAKSPEARE'S 

DRAMATIC WORKS; 

Complete in seven volumes, imperial octavo, of nearly 550 pages each ; forming 
in all nearly 4000 pages. The above edition of the great dramatist is known 
as the "magnificent Boston edition," being celebrated for its transcendent 
beauty of typography ; and in this regard altogether the finest American edi- 
tion extant. 



PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY: 

A book of thoughts and arguments, originally treated. 
BY MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER. 
First and second series, complete in 1 vol., 12mo, with a fine portrait of the 
author, and bound in various styles. 



THE MECHAMIGS' TEXT-BOOK^ 

AND 

ENGINEERS' PRACTICAL GUIDE; 

Containing a concise treatise of the nature and application of mechanical 
forces; action of gravity ; the elements of machinery ; rules and tables for cal- 
culating the working effijcts of machinery ; of the strength, resistance and pres- 
sure of materials ; with tables of the weight and cohesive strength of iron and 
other metals. Compiled and arranged by Thomas Kelt, of the Gloucester 
City Machine Company. Complete in one volume, 12mo. 

To the careful mechanic, the above will be found a work of invaluable dailv 
reference. Price $1.00. 



Phillips, Sampson ^* Cojnpajiy's Publications. 

MUSIC BOOKS. 



White's Church Melodist. 

A new collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, adapted to the wants of Choirs, 
Singing Schools, &c. By Edward L. White, Editor of " The Modern Harp," 
" Melodeon," " Sacred Chorus Book," &c. 



'3 

on, SOETGS or SiLCREB PKAISB. 
BY EDWARD HAMILTON, Esa. 
The greater portion of the music in this book is entirely new, and of a very 
high order ; and Choirs will find it a rich accession to their musical libraries. 



Congregational Singing Book; 

OR, VESTRY COZyUPJlSTIOXT. 

The music in this book is composed entirely of old choice standard tunes, 
such as will be familiar to all. They were carefully collected and edited by 
Asa Fitz, Esq. 

Common School Bong Book. 

This will be found to contain a very choice collection of simple, and, for the 
most part, familiar airs, beautifully adapted to the wants of Juvenile Choirs, 
the Private Circle, or the School Room. Edited by Asa Fitz, Esq. 



Sabbath School Minstrel. 

This little volume is especially adapted, in its Music and Hymns, to the 
service of the Sabbath School. It has been much admired wherever it has 
been used. Edited by Asa Fitz, Esq. 



GREEK COURSE OF STUDIES. 

CROSBY'S GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE. 

CROSBY'S XENOPHON'S ANABASIS. 

CROSBY'S GREEK LESSSONS : consisting of selections from Xeno- . 
phon's Anabasis, with Directions for the study of the Grammar, Notes, Exer- 
cises in Translations from English into Greek, and a A^ocabulary. 

CROSBY'S GREEK TABLES, for the use of Students. 

*^* The above are by Alpheus Crosby, Professor of the Greek Language 
and Literature in Dartmouth College. They arc very highly recommended, 
and are already extensively in use, as tsxt-books, in the different colleges and 
classical schools of the country. 



APR 25 13^' 



